REAL ESTATE WEEKLY
King of Queens has his eye on new turf
Eric Benaim is a home-borough boy.
“I was born and raised in Queens my whole life, and I really wouldn’t live anywhere else,” said the entrepreneurial Long Island City resident, who has turned familiarity with his home turf into business success.
In 2008, Benaim and Ted Kokkoris co-founded Modern Spaces, a brokerage that has grown from a single storefront in Long Island City to a 45-broker operation stretched along the shore of the East River, from Astoria to Williamsburg.
But it was a number of successes in the new developments popping up just across Roosevelt Island from Manhattan that gave the startup its momentum.