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By C. J. Hughes
Bentley Zhao, CEO, New Empire Corp.
AGE 48
BORN Xinhui, Guangdong, China
GREW UP Xinhui and Sunset Park, Brooklyn
RESIDES Brookville, Long Island
EDUCATION He studied finance at Baruch College and later architecture at CUNY’s New York City College of Technology, but he did not graduate from either school.
FAMILY LIFE Zhao is married, and he and his wife have three children.
DOWN TIME Zhao recently began studying to earn his pilot’s license, putting in his hours at Long Island airports on weekends. He also plays tennis.
BIG LEAGUES New Empire may not be as well known as Extell, but Zhao has brushed elbows with the developer all the same. In 2015 he was part of a group that bought 135 E. 47th St. from Gary Barnett’s firm for $43 million before the investors flipped it four years later for a $115 million haul.
POLITICAL TIES Zhao, who has a history of supporting Republican candidates for office, bundled a $25,000 take from different local Asian groups in 2017 for the Trump Victory Fund, records show. “I think it’s my job to bring people together,” he said.
If your home is a midsize condo on an up-and-coming block in Kips Bay or Long Island City or Flatbush, chances are it was built by Bentley Zhao.
In less than two decades, his prolific New Empire Corp. has had a hand in a hefty 120 projects either as a developer or as a construction company. The list encompasses 2,000 units of housing, or a brisk 100 condos a year.
Though the streak may not have turned New Empire into such a bold-face name as, say, Extell Development Co., staying low-profile seems to suit Zhao just fine.
“Those other developers build for very rich buyers, and we’re doing a different kind of product,” said Zhao of his projects, which typically target first-time buyers from households earning between $150,000 and $350,000 a year with prices that rarely top $2 million. “It’s a totally different market.”
Zhao also takes aim at enclaves that don’t always see lots of high-end housing. For instance, the Lower East Side’s curvaceous 208 Delancey St. arose from a former parking lot and auto-body shop near the Williamsburg Bridge. That a stop for F, J, M and Z trains is five blocks away reveals another trick to Zhao’s trade: Always build within a 10-minute walk of a subway.
Zhao spent his childhood in his native China and didn’t immigrate to this country until he was 22, in 2000, when he joined his family in Sunset Park. A few years earlier, his father, Rongde Zhao, had founded New Empire, which at first primarily handled construction for clients such as restaurants and shops. After studying business and architecture at Baruch and a local CUNY branch for a few years while simultaneously laboring as a construction manager in the family firm, Zhao left college early to become CEO of New Empire. The business also employs his older brother, Ken, who as vice chairman handles construction.
New Empire’s style has evolved dramatically in short order. Its first go-it-alone Brooklyn condo project, the 36-unit 602 39th St. in Sunset Park from 2008, is low-slung, at 3 stories, and sports a no-nonsense red-brick facade. The developer hauled in $16 million from the sale of its units, its offering plan shows.
But a decade later, after New Empire first touched down in Manhattan, it delivered 409 W. 45th St., a Hell’s Kitchen offering near Ninth Avenue with cream walls and soaring floor-to-ceiling windows. Its seven units notched $16 million, records show.
It’s a look New Empire exported to Queens in 2020 with its first project in that borough, The Neighborly, a 77-unit offering at 37-14 34th St. with white brick and chocolate trim that sold out in a year.
“We try to get better and better with each project,” Zhao said.
Along the way, the company, which has offices both in Brooklyn and Manhattan and employs 50 full-time workers, also launched a stylish, contemporary furniture business, the one-stop-shop Avenue Studio, which has two stores, one in Sunset Park and the other at the Shops on Broadway mall in Hicksville, Long Island, near Zhao’s Nassau County home. Condo buyers can opt for New Empire to furnish their units as well.
Like even marquee developers, Zhao has had to adjust as of late. “The pandemic was a bad time for every business owner, with prices four to five times above normal,” he said. And the steep interest rates of the past few years have also made financing projects tougher, he added.
Concerned that the buying pool might not be as deep as before, banks are underwriting projects more conservatively, another challenge. Indeed, where they might have kicked in 65% of a project’s cost before, 45% is the new normal, explained Zhao, who added that he’s scaled back sales targets from an ideal eight units per month to just four. “It’s just not as fast as before,” he said.
Reflecting on the past also allows Zhao to realize how much fancier Brooklyn has become, a trend that the developer has helped fuel himself. “Gentrification is the biggest change from when I was a kid,” he said. “But I feel proud to be able to give back by improving the appearance of a neighborhood.”
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