Greenpoint broker with a soft spot for startups

Ashkán Zandieh helped develop a startup venture for the Universal Music Group, during college and right after. After it was acquired, he went into the family business: real estate, according to The Commercial Observer. Now with Manhattan’s ABS Partners, Zandieh prides himself on being a broker that advises tech firms not to take spaces they can’t afford.

From the article:

Mr. Zandieh, who lives in Greenpoint, is also a big booster of Brooklyn as an alternative to the Manhattan players. “Brooklyn’s considered to be sexy now,” he said, pointing to the crowd-funding sensation Kickstarter’s $7.5 million purchase of a former pencil factory at 58 Kent Street in his neighborhood for its headquarters. Just last month, he helped tenants bring San Francisco-based co-working “clubhouse” Makeshift Society to 5,000 square feet at 55 Hope Street in a slightly off-the-beaten-path corner of Williamsburg.

Young start-ups “feel like they fit in” in North Brooklyn, Mr. Zandieh said. It’s an area that shares the raffish scene’s “core cultural beliefs. Their peers are here. The nightlife’s here.” In all, it’s a prime submarket (whose real estate headlines have mostly concerned residential and retail booms) in which to achieve the “dynamic density” creative new businesses need.

[Commercial Observer]