Charles Kushner - Business Career

Business Career

In January 1985 Kushner founded Kushner Companies, headquartered in Florham Park, New Jersey, and based on his father's real estate holdings. He was CEO, chairman, manager, and, he says, "dishwasher"; he had one secretary.

In 1999, Kushner won the Ernst & Young New Jersey Entrepreneur of the Year award. At the time, Kushner Companies had grown to over 10,000 residential apartments, a home building business, commercial and industrial properties and a community bank.

In 2003, New York University and Kushner Properties announced that the University has signed a 15-year lease for three floors, comprising 75,000 square feet (7,000 m2) of contiguous space, in the historic Puck Building, 295 Lafayette Street in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood.

In early 2007, Kushner bought the building at 666 Fifth Avenue, New York City, for US$1.8 billion, the highest price ever paid for a single office building in the United States. Subsequently Kushner shifted focus from his New Jersey real estate operations to the New York market. In July 2007, the Kushner Companies sold 17,500 apartments in the states of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and New York, valued at $2 billion. Before that sale, the Companies had employed approximately 800 people.

In August 2011, representatives from the Kushner Companies made a presentation to the Perth Amboy Redevelopment Agency proposing a scaled-back design concept for the Landings at Harborside, a residential development set to be built along the city's waterfront, and allowing rental housing instead of owner-occupied units as originally planned. The plan, which would save two historic Perth Amboy buildings, was endorsed by Mayor Wilda Diaz, who was quoted in saying "Too many sites have been torn down. Let’s restore them and use them for other purposes." She further said that the Kushner sketched a concept for the courthouse that was incorporated into the redesign.