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By: Ellen Cans
Jacob Chetrit, a partner in one of New York’s largest real estate families, has passed away at the age of 69. As reported by the Real Deal, the influential member of the Chetrit family passed away on Saturday. His passing was announced by the Ohel Moshe Synagogue, and funeral services were held on Sunday in Jerusalem, Israel.
Jacob had become a force in real estate together with his three brothers Joseph, Meyer and Juda Chetrit. The prominent privately held Chetrit Group owns illustrious real estate in Manhattan and South Florida. As reported by Crain’s NY, well-known buildings owned by the firm include the Sony Building in Midtown, the Chelsea Hotel, 26 Broadway, as well as apartment buildings on the Upper East Side, and retail properties on the Upper West Side and in SoHo. In 2004 the Chetrits led a group that acquired the Sears Tower in Chicago, IL for $840 million.
The partners renamed the 110-story tower the Willis Tower, and sold it in 2015 to Blackstone Group for $1.3 billion. “Chetrit buys and sells for profit, rather than with the goal of amassing a real estate empire,” the New York Times wrote in a 2013 article about Joseph, who is now 67-years-old. By 2022, Chetrit Group owned 14 million square feet of commercial space across the country, as per credit-rating agency KBRA.
Jacob, along with his brother Judah, had opened the Chetrit Organization in 2010, a spinoff from Chetrit Group, according to the information provided in the Crain’s report. Despite the split, all the brothers continued to work together on select projects. Chetrit Organization manages some Chetrit Group-owned properties, including two retail and office buildings at 427 and 459 Broadway in SoHo. The Chetrit Organization owns the 21-story, 366,000-square-foot commercial building at 1 Whitehall Street in the Financial District. Jacob and Juda also were currently working on major prospects in Pompano Beach and Hollywood Beach in Florida, as per the information contained in the Crain’s report. In 2020, Jacob made the news when he agreed to buy the Daily News building on East 42nd Street from SL Green for $815 million. The deal ended up falling through due to the pandemic.
The Chetrit family has roots in Morocco. Their Jewish parents, Simon and Alice Chetrit, had lived in Morocco. The family reportedly made its initial fortune in textiles and shipping, as per a report on Wikipedia. Joseph Chetrit first came to the United States in the late 1980s, and had started off in the garment business. The family started investing in Manhattan warehouses and had the foresight to capitalize on the downturn of the early ‘90s. They had acquired real estate at discounted prices. Crain’s reported, back in 2001 Jacob Chetrit and a partner had acquired 1185 Sixth Ave. for $111 million, and sold the 42-story, million-square-foot building two years later to Scott Rechler’s RXR Realty for $321 million.
The orthodox family is currently sitting Shiva for Jacob and they have not issued a public statement.
