ABOUT

"Discovery is seeing what everybody else has seen,
and thinking what nobody else has thought."

– Albert Szent-Györgyi, discovered vitamin C 

Brian Strout

New York & Florida Offices

President & Broker

Brian Strout previously worked with Robert I. Shapiro at City Center Real Estate for 4 years. Bob Shapiro was the preeminent broker for NYC air rights transactions for decades, and he was nicknamed the Sky King of air rights by Lois Weiss of the New York Post. Upon the unfortunate passing of Mr. Shapiro, Brian decided to continue to focus on air rights, land assemblages, and development sites.

Brian's initial land use and entitlement background started in 2004. Brian has applied for and received several favorable ZRD1 NYC Department of Building (DOB) zoning requests related to clarifying gray areas of the NYC Zoning Resolution. In representing buyers and sellers for either air rights or development assemblages, he works alongside land use attorneys and architects on development scenarios. He has spoken at various CRE and CLE events. Brian also has experience in the NYS FOIL requirements for obtaining records from various agencies on issues that could affect client interests. He has overcome initial FOIL denials for records by the MTA, NYC EDC, NYS ESD, Mayor’s office, and NYS AG Charities Bureau.

Ron Novita

New York Office

Strategic Advisor (through Ativon Associates)

Ronald Novita (Ron) brings over 40 years of real estate experience in both the private and public sectors. This experience includes leasing, management, revitalization techniques and urban issues as it relates to real estate development.

After 5 years at Lansco Corporation, where Ron was a tenant leasing broker, he moved to the landlord’s side when he joined Rose Associates. As a VP of Montrose Realty Corp., a subsidiary of Rose, Ron was part of a team that repositioned financially troubled buildings on behalf of mortgage holders/financial institutions, referees, and bankruptcy courts. Ron was the point man on these buildings and effectively coordinated successful workouts of commercial properties that totaled over 4 million square feet in Manhattan and Philadelphia. His primary role was handling the leasing and marketing, while assisting in the management.

When Ron moved to the public sector it was as Director of Commercial Development at Harlem CDC, a subsidiary of Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) the NYS agency charged with economic development. Ron worked on various facets ranging from job creation issues to real estate development where ESD had an investment or ownership role. Ron then moved to ESDC headquarters where as Senior Project Manager, he was part of a team that worked with other state and city agencies, as well as not-for-profits, on real estate, job creation, loan programs, and other statewide issues.

In addition to the many air rights transactions over the past 6.5 years at City Center, he has bought or net leased properties in Upper Manhattan for investment and nonprofit clients.

Ron earned his Bachelor’s degree from Baruch College, CUNY and is a member of Baruch’s Alumni Association.

Susan Spelios

Florida Office

Managing Director

Susan Spelios brings over 30 years of real estate experience from ground up development, investment, asset management, acquisition and underwriting, debt and equity placement, securitization, as well as workouts. From 1990 to 1997, Susan was with Fleet Real Estate Capital, where she managed a national portfolio of commercial properties on behalf of Lehman Brothers. These assets were either pool buyouts, recaps or in bankruptcy, giving her extensive knowledge of workouts and restructurings.

Additionally, Susan was then responsible for the real estate and hard asset portfolio for a Greenwich family office, which had been a private banking client. As the head of real estate, she dealt with the acquisition and disposition strategies for such assets as the purchase of a southeastern based defunct REIT, individual office and multifamily assets in the northeast, an oil terminal facility in Puerto Rico, and the holding/development strategy for 18,000+ acres in central Florida. Susan then went back to the private banking side of the business, both at Citi Group and then Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, where she was responsible for identifying and developing suitable commercial real estate products to meet the needs of bank clients.

Susan earned a BA in economics from Boston University and a Real Estate Finance Certificate from Northeastern University.

Representative Organizations

TRIZ Advisory’s representatives have been involved in numerous air rights and land assemblage negotiations with extensive experience working for both public and private institutions. For-profit real estate organizations comprise multi-generational families and newer developers. Recently, our representation includes additional activities in Florida.

For-Profit Groups

Non-Profit Groups