Guttman Cements Lead in Art Storage Biz with $45 M. Buildings Buy

Jack Guttman this week cemented his place atop what is perhaps New York City’s largest fine-arts storage and moving company with the purchase of two loft buildings on West 55th Street for $45 million.

Mr. Guttman, who made clear he’s unrelated to the Brooklyn Guttmans (think suspicious fires), has been in the self-storage business for 15 years as head of American Self Storage. He made his first foray into the arts in 2006 with his Chelsea Arts Tower commercial condominiums. But it was just this January that he moved into the immensely sensitive realm of high-art moving and storage when he purchased Hayes Storage (both the business and the building at 305 East 61st Street) for about $30 million.

Adding to his collection, on June 5 he purchased Cirker’s Fine Arts (again, both the business and two buildings at 430 West 55th Street) for $45 million.

“Now, we have the largest fine-art logistics and storage company in New York City, and also the oldest,” Mr. Guttman said. Hayes was founded in 1860 and Cirker’s in 1873. It’s confusing, we know, but for some time, Hayes was actually owned by Cirker’s. So Mr. Guttman is sort of reuniting the companies.

His new endeavor requires kid gloves for the art and the clients, who include the hoity-toity of the New York art world, from galleries to developers to wealthy individuals. Mr. Guttman wouldn’t name names, but he did mention a few recent moves: $50 million worth of Fabergé eggs. Several ancient Roman sculptures. A Cezanne.

In terms of logistics, think The Thomas Crown Affair. Minus the crime.

“It’s sort of the same thing,” Mr. Guttman said. “He was stealing art for himself. But we don’t do that. Let’s put it this way. In both of these properties, there are viewing rooms where people can view art that they’ve stored there. Trust me, a lot of the art being shown is above $10 million.”

Jan Riley, the registrar handling storage for the imposing Upper East Side Knoedler Gallery, said she has hired Cirker’s-Hayes a couple of times for moving purposes (her experience was good), and described the niche fine-arts storage and moving business as “critical” to the art industry.

“Most galleries have a limited amount of space in the racks for work,” she said. “So your overflow needs to go into storage, and it needs to be climate-controlled, kept clean, and organized.”

In all, Mr. Guttman, with his partner Peter Lewis, of Wharton Equity Partners, now owns just under 200,000 square feet of fine-arts storage citywide. And he’s making improvements. By this fall, he’ll have turned the cellar of his East Side building into a climate-controlled wine-storage space capable of holding 8,000 bar-coded cases. He plans to add yet more square footage in upcoming months in both Manhattan and Queens. For his part, Mr. Guttman, a Warhol and Rauschenberg fan, said his new venture is nearly foolproof, as far as the economy is concerned (sorta like doctors and funeral directors).

“In great times, people are growing their business and buying truckloads of art,” he said. “In bad times, people are consolidating and getting rid of office space, and don’t want to get rid of stuff, so they store it.”

drubinstein@observer.com