In-Person Fireside Chat: Creating a Legacy of Community Improvement with Jeffrey Gural, Chairman of GFP Real Estate

Jeffrey Gural is Chairman of GFP Real Estate LLC. GFP Real Estate LLC has an ownership interest in 41 properties, almost all of which are located in Manhattan. Mr. Gural, along with his son, Eric Gural and nephew, Brian Steinwurtzel are responsible for all future acquisitions and the managing and leasing of the 10 Million square feet that they have an ownership interest in.
Mr. Gural joined Newmark Knight Frank in 1972, and served as Chairman until 2017, after which he became Chairman Emeritus. Prior to that, Mr. Gural was a member of the staff of Diesel Construction Co., for approximately six years where he was responsible for the supervision and construction of more than one million square feet of new office space in such notable buildings as 437 Madison Avenue and 645 Madison Avenue.
Mr. Gural is a member of the Executive Committee of The Real Estate Board of New York; Former President of the enCourage Kids Foundation; Chairman of “I Have a Dream Foundation – NY” and Co-Sponsor of the Chelsea-Elliot “I Have a Dream” Project; former Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Times Square Alliance; member of the Board of Trustees of The New School; Chair of the Board of Governors for Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts; Former Chairman of the Board of Directors for Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York; Vice President of The Broadway Association; member of the Board of Directors of the Museum at Eldridge Street; member of the Board of Directors of the Statue of Liberty Foundation; member of the Board of the Settlement Housing Fund; member of the Board of Directors of New York City Outward Bound Schools; member of the NYC Board of Directors for the March of Dimes and President of The Realty Foundation of New York. Mr. Gural is a member of the UJA- Federation, Executive Committee. Both Jeff and his father, Aaron Gural, were honored at the organization’s 1995 Annual Luncheon.
As a sideline, Mr. Gural is a major owner and breeder of Standardbred racehorses and has two farms in Upstate New York and Northern Pennsylvania. Mr. Gural owns a casino in Upstate New York; Tioga Downs and a racino at Vernon Downs. Mr. Gural is also Managing Partner of New
Meadowlands Racetrack LLC, which is the current lessee and operator of the New Meadowlands Racetrack. The Meadowlands recently opened a new $120 Million grandstand which is a state-of-the-art new facility.
Mr. Gural is a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, with a degree in Civil Engineering. He is married, has three grown children, five grandchildren and resides in Manhattan.

Andrew A. Lance is a partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Real Estate Practice Group. He is resident in the New York office, where he is also Co-Partner in Charge of the office, a member of Gibson Dunn’s Compensation Committee and Head of the Real Estate Practice Group’s Hotel and Hospitality Practice. Mr. Lance’s clients include private real estate equity funds, hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, corporate and individual developers and owners, mortgage and mezzanine lenders, REITs and other public and privately held companies investing in or using real estate. Mr. Lance also represents many not-for-profit organizations, particularly those building charter schools and involved in the performing arts. His practice includes acquisitions, sales, leasing and financing of office, retail, hotel, industrial, recreational, professional sports and entertainment real estate, origination of mortgage and mezzanine loans and construction loans, real estate joint ventures and other ownership structures, master leases, sale-leasebacks and ground leases, and private and public-private ground leased and fee-owned development projects, as well as restructuring of complex debt structures and of equity interests in development ventures, and enforcement of remedies and realization on collateral by lenders in such projects.

Mr. Lance is a member of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers and a fellow of the American College of Mortgage Attorneys.  He is ranked as a leading Real Estate lawyer by Chambers USA:  America’s Leading Lawyers for Business.  Chambers USA described him as “extremely knowledgeable,” “an incredibly intelligent practitioner who is particularly good in negotiations” and “he just knows everything and everyone in the industry, and has a very calming demeanor about him that people on both sides like to work with.” He is “very experienced in complex real estate transactions and very plugged in to the New York market” with his “vast transactional experience.”  In addition, Mr. Lance is recognized by Law360 as an “MVP” in the Hospitality category, is listed in The Best Lawyers in America®, New York Magazine’s “New York Area’s Best Lawyers” edition, and The International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers. He is recommended by Who’s Who Legal Hospitality and Who’s Who Legal Real Estate recognizes him as a “Global Elite Thought Leader” on behalf of “international equity and hedge funds on an array of major developments in New York and beyond.”  Mr. Lance was recognized by Legal 500 as a “big player in the complex field of mezzanine and preferred equity financing techniques.”  Mr. Lance was the lead attorney for the transactions that won the Real Estate Board of New York’s Most Creative Retail Deal of the Year Award twice:  the lease by Hard Rock Café of the former World Wrestling Entertainment site at Times Square (2004), and the lease by Walgreens of the entire building at One Times Square (2007).

Mr. Lance joined Gibson Dunn in March 1999. He previously practiced law as Special Counsel with Sullivan & Cromwell in New York from 1984 to 1993. Mr. Lance was a consultant to McKinsey & Company on their facilities leasing worldwide. Mr. Lance is an Adjunct Professor at New York Law School, and has been a Visiting Lecturer at Yale Law School and a lecturer at the New York University Schack Institute of Real Estate. Mr. Lance also is a frequent lecturer. He has been Co-Chair of the annual Hotel Law and Practice program of the Practising Law Institute, and his speaking engagements include a Council on Foreign Relations teleconference on “Investing Capital in Real Estate in the Current Economic Climate,” at the Real Estate Investment World Latin American Conference on “Evolution of Private Equity Transactions in Latin America,” and as a plenary speaker at the 2019 meeting of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers on “Workouts in the Age of Capital Stacks.” Mr. Lance earned his Juris Doctor in 1983 from Yale Law School, where he was a member of the Yale Law Journal. He earned a Bachelor of Arts cum laude in 1980 from Princeton University and attended the University of Paris. Mr. Lance was a Fellow of the Coro Foundation Leadership New York Program.

Mr. Lance has been honored twice, in 2004 and 2009, by the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York, the service organization for not-for-profit performing arts organizations in New York City, for his support for A.R.T./New York and its member organizations. He joined the Board of A.R.T./New York in 2004, and is the former head of their Audit Committee, which he formed in 2005.