2006 Business Hall of Fame: Building Rochester’s largest real estate developer

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Laurence Glazer and Harold Samloff co-founded Buckingham Properties LLC, creating Rochester’s largest real estate developer and property management firm with more than 30 properties totaling 6.9 million square feet.
“The key to success is 90 percent perspiration and 10 (percent) inspiration-hard work, just staying with it,” Glazer says.
Samloff and Glazer started their partnership in 1970 when Samloff wanted to buy a second property on Buckingham Street, where he owned a five-unit apartment building with a partner. But the partner was not interested in a new purchase, so Samloff called then-acquaintance Glazer, who agreed to sink $1,000 into the venture and buy out Samloff’s original partner.
Early on Glazer and Samloff were residential landlords, helping develop the trendy Park Avenue area. Then they turned their attention to Monroe Avenue, selling off Park Avenue properties and buying retail shops.
They named the Monroe Avenue development Oxford Square and successfully created a commercial and residential district-their first major project.
“One of the key pivotal moments in the direction we ultimately went was when an older, more established developer scooped up a major property we were working on,” Glazer recalls. It turned out the developer had a deep relationship with the selling bank.
He and Samloff lost the large office building they thought they would one day own. From that day in the mid-1970s on, they started checking out every detail closely.
“It’s a lesson we’ve never forgotten,” Glazer says.
What’s more, he adds, that setback pushed Buckingham Properties to start looking at industrial real estate, which became the company’s niche.
Even into the mid-1980s, the partners still considered real estate a side business-Glazer was a printer and Samloff an attorney-until they successfully developed a 19-acre parcel into University Business Center. Their biggest project to date included new and refurbished buildings. After that, they started calling themselves developers.
A native Rochesterian, Samloff worked for Nixon, Hargrave, Devans & Doyle LLP after graduating from law school. In 1968, he left to become a partner in a firm that by the late 1980s was known as Githler, Samloff & Kroll.
A turning point in his law career came one day when he was driving home on I-490 and realized he was not happy or fulfilled. He decided then and there to do something on his own.
“I continued to practice law and dabble in real estate,” Samloff recalls. “I was doing something I really liked. Over time real estate became dominant.”
Samloff credits his success to a background in law, a passion for real estate, a good business partnership and hard work.
Glazer grew up in Buffalo and earned an MBA in finance in 1969 from Columbia University. He ended up in Rochester working at Great Lakes Press Inc., a printing firm owned by his wife’s family.
The sale of the printing business in 1979 gave Glazer the opportunity to focus his time and energy on developing his real estate portfolio. His wife, Jane Glazer, is president of a mail-order catalog company, Home Trends.
In 2003, Glazer bought out Samloff’s portion of the management company. Samloff, who consults for the business, continues to own many properties and Buckingham manages them.
Also in 2003, Buckingham Properties finished its biggest adaptive-reuse project, converting the Michaels-Stern factory. The two-year construction project created office and retail space and loft apartments.
Earlier this year, Buckingham acquired the 17-acre Genesee Hospital complex on Alexander Street. Glazer plans to raze most of the massive building and redevelop its site as a mix of upscale residential, office and retail space.
Glazer and Samloff both have been deeply involved in the community. Glazer has served as chairman of the Jewish Home of Rochester, and on the board of Monroe Community College Foundation Inc., the Rochester District Heating Cooperative Inc. and the Jewish Community Federation of Greater Rochester. He also is a founder of the National Kidney Foundation of Upstate New York.
Samloff is a trustee of the Louis S. and Molly B. Wolk Foundation, chairman and board member of the Downstairs Cabaret Theatre, and a donor adviser of the Samloff Family Fund at Rochester Area Community Foundation.
“I’ve enjoyed helping develop Rochester into a better place to live,” he says.
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09/22/06 (C) Rochester Business Journal