Richard and Lois Nicotra are the Vanderbilt’s of our day — except they are good guys. Cornelius Vanderbilt began the Vanderbilt empire by operating a ferry on Staten Island; the Nicotra’s began their business by founding the Everything Yogurt chain with an initial store at 51 Broadway near Wall Street in Manhattan on March 29, 1976.
Everything Yogurt
“Yogurt is really sour milk,” Richard Nicotra revealed in an interview in 1999. “We got the product in liquid form from Colombo Yogurt in Massachusetts and we put it into an ice cream machine to freeze it and whip it. We had vanilla, strawberry, and peach. It was a big day when we could manufacture chocolate frozen yogurt.”
Richard Nicotra was 21 years old at the time, and his newlywed wife Lois — who was an elementary school teacher — did the payroll. “When we got married, he was running his first store in Manhattan, and asked me to help with the payroll,” said Lois Nicotra in an interview with Industry magazine. “We lived in the tiniest two room basement apartment then, and I did it all by hand, sitting on the edge of the bed using the ironing board as a desk.”
After opening a number of company-owned stores, the Nicotras created the Everything Yogurt franchise system. It became the 1st fast-food yogurt franchise chain, and by the early 1990’s the franchise had over 250 Everything Yogurt stores. Nicotra named the franchise Restaurant Systems International, and went beyond yogurt into juice bars, salads, and wrapped sandwiches. By 1999 the franchise had systemwide sales of over $50 Million a year.
What Happened to Everything Yogurt
The Nicotras then sold the franchise to the Bananas Smoothies and Frozen Yogurt franchise, which is now part of the Villa Restaurant Group. The Bananas Smoothies and Frozen Yogurt franchise advertises that is uses Everything Yogurt “and fresh ingredients to make delicious combinations”.
Venture Into Real Estate
In the meantime, Richard and Lois Nicotra bought land in the Staten Island Corporate Park area and became real estate developers. “For years, I was a tenant and the experience wasn’t pleasant,” writes Richard Nicotra at the top of the Staten Island Corporate Park ‘about us’ web page. “I always thought that if I had the opportunity to be a landlord, I would treat my tenants like kings- and I do. I’m the best landlord on Staten Island – or so my tenants tell me.”
Today, the Nicotra Group is Staten Island’s largest private real estate developer, managing and leasing over 1.5MM square feet of commercial space and surrounding grounds, and a 415-acre natural wildlife preserve. The buildings include the following, all located in the Corporate Park of Staten Island:
- 8 Class A office buildings
- The Hilton Garden Inn (198 rooms)
- The Nicotra’s Ballroom and Conference Center
- Above and Above Rooftop
- Lorenzo’s Restaurant, Bar & Cabaret
- The Hampton Inn & Suites (107 rooms)
Here’s how it happened:
The Nicotra Corporate Park Story
While still owning Everything Yogurt, the Nicotras purchased a building in Port Richmond to be their first corporate office.
Meanwhile, starting in the late 1970’s, the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey invested $70 Million to develop land in Bulls Head to be The Teleport — a satellite transmission site and office center with 1 Million square feet of office space intended for 3,000 workers. AT&T was the main tenant of the Teleport, with 2,400 workers employed there.
1000 South Avenue
The Port Authority worked in conjunction with NYC, which offered up commercial land to developers in the land next to The Teleport, which was named the Corporate Park. The Nicotras were one of the leading customers: they bought land from NYC at 1000 South Avenue in 1988, and developed a 40,000 square-foot building, within which they put the headquarters of Everything Yogurt — which took up 10,000 square feet. The other 30,000 square feet was rented to other businesses.
The Atrium — aka 1200 South Avenue
In 1995, the Nicotras bought 4.5 acres of city land for a 2nd building — The Atrium — a 75,000 square foot building. “I saw there was a market on Staten Island for Class A office space,” Richard Nicoltra was quoted as saying in an article in 1999. He was able to lease out 90 percent of the building before it was even completed — with initial tenants including State Farm Insurance, Allstate Insurance, Metropolitan Life, and Anthem Health and Life Insurance Company.
900 South Avenue
The Nicotras bought another 2.5 acre site from NYC for $1 Million in 1997, and developed the office building at 900 South Avenue, which includes parking for 250 cars (some inside and some outside).
The Hotels
In 1993, the Nicotras moved their Everything Yogurt headquarters from the building they had in Port Richmond to their new building at 1000 South Avenue just after it was completed. They hosted conventions for Everything Yogurt franchisees and potential franchisees, but had to send attendees to New Jersey hotels because the Corporate Park area was still desolate, and further Staten Island didn’t really have a nice hotel to stay in.
So, according to interviews, the Nicotras began examining what it would take to build a new hotel in Staten Island.
In the late 1990’s, NYC’s Dept of Economic Development issued a request for proposals on developing a 20-acre site in the Corporate Park, which was formerly a stable and its grounds. In 1997, the Nicotra Group won the proposal selection process — with a proposal for a 6-story, 160-room, Class A Hotel (what is now the Hilton Garden Inn), a day care center, office buildings with 300,000 square feet of office space, and 2 restaurants. The Nicotras tapped Land Planning and Engineering Consultants, a Staten Island firm, as architects.
The Hilton Garden Inn opened on September 15, 2001 — just days after the horrific events of September 11th.
The Nicotras then built a 2nd hotel on the grounds — the Hampton Inn, which opened for business in 2007. The Hampton Inn soon offered up space in an office by its side for Avis and Budget rental cars — which use part of the big parking lot to park their rental cars.
The Hampton Inn currently features a Western, Cowboy theme.
Corporate Commons 1 and 2
In 2009, AT&T moved out of the Teleport, taking 4,000 employees out of 2 office buildings on the site. The Nicotra Group bought the buildings and renamed them to Corporate Commons 1 and Corporate Commons 2. Both are 3-story buildings at 1 Teleport Drive — Corporate Commons 1 offers 120,000 square feet of office space, while Corporate Commons 2 offers 180,000 square feet.
Corporate Commons 3
The Nicotra Group then bought 9-acre expanse from NYC’s Economic Development Corporation and the PANYNJ for $3.6 million and built Corporate Commons 3, which broke ground in 2017 and opened in September, 2020.
At the heart of Corporate Commons 3 is a Silver LEED certified, 8-story, 330,000 square foot, Class A office building with an organic rooftop farm, surrounded by an outdoor trail, outdoor art, outdoor working pods, a bocce court, and an outdoor classroom space in a preserved area of the property that is Staten Island’s version of Monet’s Garden.
It also features a Vineyard — which runs parallel to the “Rue des Artistes” walkway. “Staten Island has beer, why can’t it have wine too?” asked Richard Nicoltra in a interview published when the Corporate Commons 3 was breaking ground.
Corporate Commons 3 also offers a restaurant, initially named “Pienza, Pizza, Pasta and Porchetta” — and since renamed to “Pienza Brick Oven Pizza Cafe”. “Pienza is our favorite town in Italy that Lois and I go to to escape the craziness of our lives,” said Richard Nicotra in a published interview. “We want to bring the soul of this little Tuscan town to this building.” Richard also said the restaurant “donates 100 percent of the proceeds to only Staten Island charities.”
“We sell prepared foods in the restaurant and have organic foods for sale that grows on the rooftop,” added Richard Nicoltra in the published interview. “Our brides who get married at Above (the wedding space at the Hilton Garden Inn) will be able to have a salad with a tomato that was picked that day, not one shipped from California two weeks ago.”
The Bloomfield Conservancy
The Nicotras have also created The Bloomfield Conservancy — a not-for-profit corporation created to maintain and preserve the wetlands within the Corporate Park, and maintain and beautify the public areas around the Corporate Park, including the median on South Avenue.
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