The NAI Hallmark commercial real estate brokerage and property management company is moving its headquarters from the Southpoint area to 200 Riverside in the Brooklyn neighborhood Downtown.
It targets Labor Day for occupancy.
The city is reviewing a permit application for Emerald C’s Development Inc. to build-out 5,627 square feet of space for NAI Hallmark in Vista Brooklyn at 200 Riverside Ave. at a cost of $755,652.
NAI Hallmark Managing Partner Christian Harden estimates an investment of at least $1 million in build-out, furniture, fixtures and equipment.
Harden and Managing Partner Keith Goldfaden bought NAI Hallmark in 2016 after each spent nearly a decade with the company.
“This is the most meaningful investment we’ve made as a company since acquiring it,” Harden said June 1 of the new headquarters.
Harden said the offices would be representative of modern workspace, and a departure from the initial pre-pandemic designs.
“Commercial real estate is our business so it is important we deliver a first-class environment for our team,” he said.
“We are eager to share our thought process on office design and functionality with our clients as they begin to bring their offices back to full capacity.”
It will be designed not only for a hybrid workforce but for community impact.
“Being in storefront retail is a departure from what most commercial real estate companies have done historically,” he said.
“We are a community-oriented company and being visible is important to us.”
The space is the centerpiece of the ground floor of the new Vista Brooklyn apartments at Riverside Avenue and Jackson Street, bracketed by end spaces for retail tenants.
Harden said the office space will be designed as high-efficiency hoteling with meeting and event capabilities.
Each area, including the kitchen, meeting rooms and soft-seating areas, will be work environments.
“Everywhere in the office is somewhere you could sit down with a laptop,” he said.
That not only allows employees to connect where they need to be, but clients can drop by to plug in, grab coffee and work while on their way to other appointments.
Hota Design Studio is the primary interior designer, with contributions from BLD Architecture.
NAI Hallmark’s total workforce is 42, although that includes facilities management employees who work on-site at properties the firm manages.
Harden said in the wake of the pandemic, some employees adapted to a hybrid schedule of working from a home a couple days a week.
Harden serves on the city’s Downtown Development Review Board.
Being civic-minded, he said the space also is designed to host events, including fundraisers and industry-related gatherings for clients and community partners.
Harden said the location allows the team to be able to walk to lunch to the dozen restaurants in the area, to The Fresh Market grocery store and to nearby locations for after-work drinks.
“The Brooklyn neighborhood is one of the few truly walkable urban areas in our city and participating in that transformation has been really important to our company.”
HP-BDG 200 Riverside LLC owns the Brooklyn building. That group is led by Bristol Development Group of Franklin, Tennessee, with Jacksonville-based Hallmark Partners. an affiliate of NAI Hallmark, as a partner on the deal.
NAI Hallmark has been based in about 4,000 square feet at 6675 Corporate Center Parkway, Suite 100, at Interstate 95 and Butler Boulevard.
Hallmark Partners’ founders bought that three-story, almost 66,000-square-foot structure in 2003 and sold it last year.
