Executive Coordinator

Lucas Durst named Chief Financial Officer of The Durst Organization. New York, NY - July 8, 2026 - The Durst Organization today announced the appointment of Lucas Durst as the company's Chief Financial Officer. Lucas began his career at Durst more than a decade ago, starting as a finance associate. Most recently, he led the $1.3 billion CMBS financing of One Five One, the $250 million CMBS financing of 1155 Avenue of the Americas, and the $450 million CMBS financing of SVEN. As CFO, Lucas oversees all financial and accounting functions at the company. "Over the last few years, we have seen a rapidly changing capital markets environment for commercial real estate, and Lucas spearheaded some of the largest and most complex transactions in the company's history. His stewardship as Chief Financial Officer will reinforce the company's position of financial strength," said Jody Durst, President of The Durst Organization. "The best thing about working with Lucas is the problems that never happen. He sees them well in advance and solves them before they surface. I've worked with Lucas across dozens of financings, and that foresight is exactly what makes him the right CFO," said Andrew Thornfeldt, Managing Director, Chatham Financial. "I am humbled to take on the role of Chief Financial Officer at a pivotal point for our company as we embark on the repositioning of 114 West 47th Street and the ongoing lease up of Halletts Point. I look forward to working with our senior leadership team and the talented group of finance and accounting professionals driving our work," said Lucas Durst, Chief Financial Officer of The Durst Organization. Lucas Durst previously served as the Director of Finance and he is a member of the fourth generation of family leaders at the company. Lucas holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in American Studies from Tufts University and a Master's degree in Real Estate Finance from New York University. He is a member of the Real Estate Board of New York. Date 2026-07-08

Durst is spending tens of millions on A midtown office reposition. Zero of it is going to A new gym. May 18, 2026 3 min. read Durst Organization just put 600,000 square feet on the market at 114 West 47th Street in Midtown Manhattan. A 26-story, LEED Gold tower built in 1989. The asking rent is $110 to $135 per square foot. The reposition spend runs into the tens of millions. Here's what makes it interesting. Look at where the money is going. New lobbies. New elevator cabs. New terraces. A new tenant lounge. That's the list. No new gym. No new co-working floor. No game room. For 15 years the office reposition playbook has been about amenities - a bigger fitness center, a fancier kitchen, a foosball table, a yoga room. Durst is making the opposite bet. They're spending the money on the experience of arriving, circulating, and gathering. Everything else stays in its lane. What's happening. The reason this is the right bet shows up clearly in its portfolio booking data. Last 30 days versus the prior 30 days. Same buildings. Same tenants. Bookings for outdoor space up 88%. Common areas up 59%. Mother rooms up 67%. Event space up 18%. Lounge bookings up 15%. Quiet space and fitness flat to up. On the other side. Private offices down 7%. Recreation game rooms down 20%. Co-working space down 43%. The pattern is clean. Anything that resembles a private workspace or a recreation room is flat or down. Anything that brings people together is up. Sometimes up double or triple digits. Tenants are voting with their feet. They want gathering space, not isolation space. They want the building to do the thing the home office cannot do. Why it matters. The trophy office trade has been running for three years. The story has mostly been about asset class - Class A versus everything else, trophy versus commodity. That story is real but it's only half the picture. The other half is what kind of trophy. Two buildings can both be Class A. One spends $30 million on a fitness center and a co-working lounge. The other spends $30 million on lobbies, terraces, and a tenant lounge. Same headline budget. Completely different result. Leesman has been measuring this from the experience side for over a decade across more than 1M workplace responses. The Experience Gap is biggest in the categories where the building is competing with the kitchen table. Private offices. Quiet desks. Even gyms. People have those at home or down the street. The gap is smallest, and the building wins by the widest margin, in spaces that cannot exist at home. A real lobby. A floor of terraces. A tenant lounge designed for unstructured collisions. That is what Durst is underwriting. The structural advantage of the building over the home office. What to do. Three moves for any landlord underwriting a reposition this cycle. First, look at your booking data before you sign the capex plan. The portfolio average lies. If outdoor space, lounges, and common areas are growing double digits while private offices and game rooms are flat or down, you already have the answer. Second, separate the gathering layer from the work layer in your spending plan. The reason Durst's spend works is that the new dollar is going where the tenant wants the dollar to go. Lobbies. Elevators. Terraces. Lounges. Not things that compete with the home office. Third, get the front door on a phone. A beautiful tenant lounge that nobody can find or book is half-finished work. The AI-era tenant books on a phone or doesn't book at all. The discovery layer is part of the spend. Durst is one of the savviest operators in the New York market. They just told you where they think the next dollar of office rent is going to be earned. Not in a bigger gym. In a better lobby. The booking data inside its buildings is telling you the same thing. The recreation room is over. The gathering room is the product. Anyways. The reposition that wins isn't a bigger gym. It's a better lobby. Enjoy the article? Feel free to share it.