Retail leasing in New York City includes a wide range of property types, including retail spaces, restaurants, and larger spaces for uses such as entertainment, fitness, and services. Brokerage assignments include landlords looking for tenants and businesses seeking properties, or both. The assignments differ depending on the neighborhoods, sizes of the property, uses allowed, and type of business. Against this setting, James Famularo developed a career focused increasingly on retail and food-and-beverage properties. His professional path moved from the electrical trade into commercial real estate and later into specialized retail brokerage. Over time, his work included restaurant, nightclub, bar, specialty retail, and other commercial leasing assignments across New York City.
Famularo entered commercial real estate after working in the electrical trade. In a 2018 interview with the New York Real Estate Journal, he said he had worked as a journeyman and supervised projects involving the Jacothe b K. Javits Convention Center, the World Trade Center, and Rockefeller Center. His move into real estate followed an experience involving a vacant building owned by his mother in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. He helped find a buyer after speaking with lawyers, brokers, and other parties involved in the property. He subsequently obtained a real estate license and joined a corporate relocation company serving major banks. The same interview records show that he obtained applications for two spaces within three days of starting the job.
By the early 2000s, Famularo had moved into New York commercial brokerage. Records identify him as an executive vice president and managing director at New York Commercial Real Estate Services, where he remained through 2013. During this period, his work increasingly centered on restaurants, nightlife, and other retail uses. A 2014 account from the New York Real Estate Journal stated that he had previously served as senior executive managing director at the company and had received its Highest Grossing Award for five years. The Real Deal also reported on his work in the restaurant and nightlife sector during the 2000s, including assignments involving restaurants, lounges, and nightclubs. These activities established the specialization that later became central to his work at Eastern Consolidated.
In January 2014, Eastern Consolidated formally launched a retail leasing division and recruited Famularo as one of its senior directors. The group also included Alexander Hill, Jeff Geoghegan, and Ravi Idnani. Eastern Consolidated created the division after expanding into retail investment sales and identifying demand for dedicated leasing services. It represented both landlords and tenants, rather than limiting its work to properties the brokerage marketed for sale. Early reported assignments included 1Oak Meatpacking at 453 West 17th Street, Goldbar at 389 Broome Street, and Markt at 676 Sixth Avenue.
Famularo’s work at Eastern Consolidated covered a range of retail categories. However, restaurants and food-and-beverage businesses remained a recurring part of his assignments. In 2016, he arranged the lease of a 600-square-foot space at 21 Crosby Street in SoHo for Fueguia 1833 Patagonia, an Argentine fragrance company opening its first United States location. The reported lease had a 10-year term, with an asking rent of $350 per square foot. In 2017, he represented Black Tap in a 10-year lease at 177 Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side. The reported space contained 4,000 square feet, divided between the ground and lower levels, with an asking rent of $150 per square foot. These transactions show the range between specialty retail and restaurant assignments within his Eastern Consolidated work.
The Eastern Consolidated period also included assignments involving smaller neighborhood properties and established New York businesses. In 2014, Famularo and Geoghegan were retained to market 2,800 square feet at 695 Ninth Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen, consisting of 2,000 square feet on the ground floor and 800 square feet below grade. In 2016, Famularo represented the landlord in a lease for Mamoun’s Falafel at 30 St. Marks Place after the restaurant sought a new location nearby. Other reported transactions included leases involving Zuber & Company, Hunt & Fish Club Steakhouse, and businesses occupying retail properties in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Eastern Consolidated promoted Famularo to principal in January 2016, while its records also identified him as a senior director in the retail leasing division.
His role expanded as Eastern Consolidated’s retail group grew. LinkedIn records list Famularo as the company’s Retail Broker of the Year in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017. A 2016 Eastern Consolidated announcement reported that he had arranged more than 600 leases for food-and-beverage establishments during his career at that point. The company also described assignments involving the Hunt and Fish Club Steakhouse, Zuber & Company, a restaurant at a Holiday Inn in Downtown Brooklyn, and several businesses on Reade Street in Tribeca. By 2017, The Real Deal described Famularo as part of an Eastern Consolidated team that had arranged leases for poke restaurants, hybrid retail concepts, and online retailers moving into physical locations.
Eastern Consolidated announced in June 2018 that it would close, and Famularo moved to Meridian Capital Group with members of his team. Meridian created a new retail leasing division, naming Famularo president of retail leasing. The move took place as Eastern Consolidated prepared to cease operations in July 2018. At Meridian, the retail division initially launched with five brokers. In a November 2018 interview, Famularo reported that the team had closed 15 deals totaling just under $50 million in its first months and had 48 active deals under signed exclusive agreements. By 2019, the team had expanded to 18 brokers and had completed its 100th lease with Meridian.
The first years of the Meridian division marked a transition from Famularo’s earlier concentration on food and beverage into a broader retail leasing practice. According to Commercial Observer, the team completed 90 leases totaling 203,050 square feet in the first half of 2019. According to The Real Deal, Meridian ranked ninth among Manhattan’s commercial retail brokerages in terms of leasing activities in 2019 with 169,400 square feet. Further reporting by Connect CRE highlighted the extent of work done in the years after that. In 2022, Famularo completed more than 200 leasing transactions amounting to 550,000 square feet, with a consideration amount of $329.4 million. In 2023, according to Connect CRE, Famularo completed 276 leases totaling 575,000 square feet and $437.5 million in rent.
By the mid-2020s, Famularo’s career spanned more than two decades in New York retail leasing. Meridian’s current biography states that he has negotiated more than 5,000 leases and leased more than 10 million square feet during his career, while Connect CRE’s 2024 profile recorded more than 1 million square feet and 5,000 leases using figures available for that award profile. The differing figures reflect the sources’ dates and measurement periods. His career has included work at New York Commercial Real Estate Services, Eastern Consolidated, and Meridian Capital Group, with assignments ranging from restaurants and nightlife venues to specialty retailers and service businesses. James Famularo’s professional history therefore traces the development of a retail leasing practice across several New York brokerage firms and successive stages of the city’s commercial property market.
