Jeff Gural has for decades been weaving a tapestry of his own in the Garment District and lower-key office markets, carrying on a tradition passed down from his father that remains the foundation of the commercial real estate dynasty.

Continuously tending to properties in these areas of Manhattan has grown Gural’s GFP Real Estate nicely. That includes major office-to-residential conversions like 25 Water Street or 100 Gold Street in the Financial District — never mind the firm’s work with partners on reconfiguring the triangularly iconic Flatiron Building into condos. Now 83, Gural began working in 1972 in the family business, then known as Newmark Grubb, and he took control of the company in 1978. What would become known as GFP Real Estate focused on a “legacy portfolio” of Class B and C offices leased in part to nonprofit organizations and tech companies. Gural and partner Barry Gosin grew Newmark Grubb by aggressively buying up commercial and residential properties. The firm then merged with London-based real estate firm Knight Frank in 2006, creating Newmark Knight Frank, which is now known globally as simply Newmark after a 2011 acquisition by BGC Partners.

In 2017, when Newmark split away completely, Gural became chairman of GFP Real Estate, closely guarding the family’s legacy portfolio.

Despite GFP Real Estate owning some premier buildings, its legacy portfolio continues to be the breadbasket of the family business, attracting tenants through multiple economic cycles and holding on to relevance regardless of what industries dominate.

“We have one Plaza District building, 515 Madison Avenue, which does not appeal to the tech guys — they want to be where it’s cool, and, luckily, SoHo, the Village, Tribeca, Chelsea are cool, so it’s worked out well,” Gural said. “When COVID hit, we got crushed. … We had to come back from the depths of work from home, and I would say that our portfolio is in good shape.”

GFP recently refinanced two buildings in Manhattan and one in Jersey City, N.J. In 2022, it refinanced several more — before interest rates sharply increased — locking in good terms.

“I don’t envision that we’ll be giving any of the keys back, unlike bigger companies than us,” Gural said. “In my business, we deal with mainly smaller tenants. We don’t have tenants with 200,000, 300,000 square feet, and the key to success is not having too much debt. The debt you have should always have 30-year amortization, not interest-only. The only protection you have against rising interest rates is amortization.”

Having cash reserves has also been key to Gural’s success, he said, especially through the last few years, with the expense of building out space for new tenants costing just as much as in Class A spaces. Plus, due to competition, GFP also has a number of concessions it needs to make to potential tenants to get space leased.

“There are a lot of landlords who, when times were good, distributed all the money, had interest-only loans,” Gural said. “Unless the building value went up by 50 percent, which it probably didn’t, you have no choice but to give the bank back the keys, sell it, or convert it.” Gural, who owns two upstate New York farms where he breeds racehorses, is also looking to turn his privately owned “racino” called Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford, N.J., into a full-fledged casino through a constitutional amendment with the state government.

More than anything professionally, though, Gural hopes that later generations of his family will hang on to GFP’s legacy office portfolio and maintain that baseline for the family business.

“My goal is to make sure that the legacy buildings that we have will continue to cash-flow so that I’ll be able to make distributions to the family,” Gural said. “I want to know that my children, grandchildren and my sisters — they’re not going to be phenomenally wealthy, but they’ll be able to live an upper middle-class lifestyle. … Two of my five grandchildren are working for me now.” —Mark Hallum