Louis Kestenbaum

Kestenbaum was born to a Hasidic Jewish family, the son of Rabbi Zvi Kestenbaum.[1] His father lost most of his family in the Holocaust[2] and founded the ODA Primary Health Care Network, a federally subsidized health care center that serves the Hasidic community in South Williamsburg.[3] He is a follower of the Satmar Hasidic dynasty.[2]

Kestenbaum operated a sportswear company.[4] In the early 1980s, Kestenbaum paid $4 million for Austin, Nichols and Company Warehouse, a vacant 500,000-square-foot industrial property at 184 Kent Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He used part of the building for his company and leased the remainder.[4] Kestenbaum later converted the building to apartments and tripled his rental income using the proceeds to buy other properties in the neighborhood.[4] He went on to develop Northside Piers in Williamsburg.[5]

In 2004, he co-founded the Fortis Property Group with his son and Jonathan Landau, a modern Orthodox Jewish attorney from Cleveland, Ohio who he had used for several transactions.[5] Within two years, the company acquired over $3 billion in properties, primarily Class A office buildings in Dallas, Boston, and Norfolk, Connecticut.[5] In 2009, Kestenbaum purchased a portion of the real estate portfolio of prolific Brooklyn real estate developer Isaac Hager who declared bankruptcy.[6] Initially focusing on smaller projects and asset purchases, in the early 2010s, he felt the time was ripe to participate in ground-up development.

Since its founding, Fortis has acquired or developed more than $3 billion of commercial real estate across the United States.[3]

Development projects he has been involved with include:

• The redevelopment of Long Island College Hospital in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.[7]
• 161 Maiden Lane[8]

His son, Joel Kestenbaum, works with him at Fortis.[9] Kestanbaum has continued the work of his father who restored more than 50 Jewish cemeteries in eastern Europe.[10]