2025 Year in Review: Stuart Saft, Holland & Knight LLP

Partner Stuart Saft, who leads Holland & Knight's New York Real Estate Practice Group, was featured in a Q&A with the New York Real Estate Journal recapping 2025 and previewing market expectations for 2026. He shared that representing The Naftali Group in the development of Williamsburg Wharf, a mixed-use development comprising an 850-unit residential building, retail, park and riverfront promenade, was a highlight of the year because it "demonstrates how the private sector can transform underutilized space into a community and act as a magnet for redevelopment of an entire area." He added that Zohran Mamdani's election as the next mayor of New York City was the most significant event for New York's commercial real estate market, given the mayor-elect's plans to freeze rents. This proposal to freeze rents, he commented, will result in low turnover at rent-regulated apartments and increased costs for insurance and construction, which will render condos the lone viable option for new housing development – good for condo developers and other parties in these projects, but not so great for the rest of the city, he remarked.

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