Nir Meir, Ziel Feldman, and Helene Feldman. Photo-Illustration: Curbed; Photos: Shutterstock/Getty Images This article was featured in One Great Story, New York’s reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly.
That Feldman can so easily string together a list of billionaires who have bounced back from financial ruin probably says more about the ludicrous nature of the Manhattan real-estate business than it does Feldman’s own circumstances. In truth, it’s hard to compare any other builder’s misfortunes with the enormous pile of rubble through which Feldman is presently wading. In addition to losing its portfolio, HFZ has been sued by a slew of contractors, lenders, and investors.
Insiders and former employees say there is no one reason HFZ imploded, pointing to an array of issues — poor decision-making, a chaotic work culture, extravagant spending, spreadsheets that said whatever the bosses wanted to hear. Even those who didn’t have a front seat to the turbulence sensed something was awry.
“We were like his family. I always said I have three children and that I gave them an older brother, Nir,” says Feldman’s wife, Helene, who is sitting beside him in his office. A former prosecutor in the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, Helene served as HFZ’s “design and creative” principal. She has blue eyes and platinum-blonde hair and wears black leather platform shoes she designed herself. “Ziel really took him in as a son.
Eventually, Feldman co-founded a development firm, Property Markets Group, with a banker named Kevin Maloney. There was no shortage of opportunity in the early ’90s. PMG went after SROs, troubled walk-ups, and neglected buildings it could afford to buy and refurbish before raising rents. As a young start-up, PMG’s partners prided themselves on keeping overhead low, stuffing employees into a cramped office with space heaters. Everyone except Feldman worked off cheap folding tables.
People who knew and worked with Feldman say he seemed to be driven by an unspoken desire to reach the penthouse of Manhattan real estate: the dynastic families — Durst, Zeckendorf, Speyer, LeFrak, Rose, et al. Feldman liked to talk about what made a successful developer, and more than anything, he thought of himself as a tastemaker attuned to the city’s trends and needs.
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