Good Dirt: Conversations with Leaders in Real Estate & Beyond

Ed Pitoniak is Chief Executive Officer and a member of the board of directors of VICI Properties Inc., an S&P 500® experiential real estate investment trust that owns one of the largest portfolios of market-leading gaming, hospitality and entertainment destinations, including Caesars Palace Las Vegas, MGM Grand and the Venetian Resort Las Vegas, three of the most iconic entertainment facilities on the Las Vegas Strip. VICI Properties owns 93 experiential assets across a geographically diverse portfolio consisting of 54 gaming properties and 39 other experiential properties across the United States and Canada. The portfolio is comprised of approximately 127 million square feet and features approximately 60,300 hotel rooms and approximately 500 restaurants, bars, nightclubs and sportsbooks. Its properties are occupied by industry-leading gaming, leisure and hospitality operators under long-term, triple-net lease agreements. VICI Properties has a growing array of real estate and financing partnerships with leading non-gaming experiential operators, including Bowlero, Cabot, Canyon Ranch, Chelsea Piers, Great Wolf Resorts, and Kalahari Resorts and Conventions. VICI Properties also owns four championship golf courses and 33 acres of undeveloped and underdeveloped land adjacent to the Las Vegas Strip. VICI Properties’ goal is to create the highest quality and most productive experiential real estate portfolio through a strategy of partnering with the highest quality experiential place makers and operators.Previously, Mr. Pitoniak served as Vice Chairman of Realterm, a private equity real estate manager. From 2006 to 2019 Mr. Pitoniak served as an independent director at Ritchie Brothers (NYSE: RBA), the world’s largest auctioneers of construction equipment. In April 2014, Mr. Pitoniak became Managing Director of InnVest, a publicly listed REIT, responsible for recapitalizing the REIT and transitioning its management function from an external, third-party management model, to an internal management model. He then served as Chairman from June 2015 to August 2016, when the REIT was sold and taken private. He also served as a director of Regal Lifestyle Communities (TSE: RLC), a Canadian seniors housing real estate owner and operator, from 2012 until its sale in 2015. Mr. Pitoniak retired in 2009 from the position of President and Chief Executive Officer and Director of bcIMC Hospitality Group, a hotel property and brand ownership entity (formerly a public income trust called Canadian Hotel Income Properties Real Estate Investment Trust (“CHIP”)), where he was employed from 2004 to 2009. As Chief Executive Officer of CHIP, he led the company to four consecutive years of total return leadership among Canadian hotel REITs, and then to a sale in 2007. Mr. Pitoniak was also a member of CHIP’s Board of Trustees before it went private. Prior to joining CHIP, Mr. Pitoniak was a Senior Vice-President at Intrawest Corporation, a ski and golf resort operator and developer, for nearly eight years. Before Intrawest, Mr. Pitoniak spent nine years with Times Mirror Magazines, where he served as editor-in-chief and associate publisher with Ski Magazine. Mr. Pitoniak has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Amherst College.This was a fascinating discussion for us, and Ed shares with our listeners a highlight real of business and real estate anecdotes picked up throughout his illustrious career. We appreciate Ed spending time with us and are very excited to share this with our Good Dirt community. We look forward to following VICI’s continued growth and enjoying their many amazing properties!For more information on VICI Properties and its growing portfolio of experiential real estate, visit: www.viciproperties.comAs referenced: In Memoriam, Jack Connors

Todd S. Rich is a Co-Founder, Partner and Head of Real Estate at Declaration Partners and oversees Declaration’s real estate investment activity. Todd brings over 20 years of real estate investing and operating experience including acquisitions, dispositions, development, leasing, and management of portfolios involving over $20 billion of institutional quality real estate.Declaration Partners is a private investment firm that seeks to be a value-added capital partner and strategic resource to founders & entrepreneurs, management teams, and asset owners. Anchored by the family office of private equity veteran and philanthropist David M. Rubenstein, Declaration invests on behalf of family offices and like-minded institutional investors. Declaration’s approach emphasizes partnership born from its family office heritage while seeking to achieve favorable long-term outcomes with strong alignment. Declaration has approximately $2.2 billion in assets under management across its private investment strategies, which include tactical growth equity, real estate, GP solutions, and other opportunistic strategies. The firm was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in New York with an office in the Washington, DC area.Prior to forming Declaration Partners, Todd was a Partner at The JBG Companies and a member of its Investment and Management Committees, where he was involved in strategic efforts culminating in the creation of JBG SMITH Properties as a public REIT (NYSE: JBGS). Prior to joining The JBG Companies, Todd was a Managing Director at Tishman Speyer where he was responsible for the business activities of the Washington, DC region and worked in Tishman Speyer’s Chicago, London, and New York offices.Todd holds a Bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, from Princeton University, and was a US Fulbright Scholar. Todd serves as a board member of the SED Center and the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Washington, and is a former board member of the Economic Club of Washington.We really enjoyed our discussion with Todd, who is as well-liked as he is respected in the national investment market. Todd shared with us how each stop in his journey equipped him to eventually launch Declaration Partners, a unique opportunity to start a new platform with a bona fide legend of the private equity industry, David Rubenstein. Todd’s perspective on the market and his overview of Declaration’s thoughtful approach will be an interesting listen for all in the real estate and investment management arenas.For more info on Declaration Partners, please visit: https://declarationpartners.com/Please share with clients, colleagues and friends and thanks for tuning in!Tom Greeleyhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasgreeley/tom.greeley@nmrk.comMike Greeleyhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgreeley1Michael.greeley@nmrk.com

Jeff Karp is the President and Co-Founder of LAZ Parking LLC, the largest privately held parking operator in the country. Jeff founded LAZ Parking in 1981 and LAZ currently operates over 4,000 locations, in 452 cities and 41 states across the country. With a dedicated and passionate employee base of over 14,000 strong committed to a superior customer service experience, LAZ has been propelled into being a leader in its field. With $2.0 billion in annual revenue, LAZ Parking strives for a best in class culture, focused on conscious capitalism rooted within ESG and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Jeff is also a Founder and Principal Partner in LAZ Parking Reality Investors (LPRI), a vertically integrated real estate platform focused on parking assets nationally. Their mission is to identify, diligence, and acquire parking assets nationwide; finding opportunities to add value through experienced ownership and operation. LPRI’s experience extends over virtually every type of parking asset, from simple surface lots to complex mixed-use garages, and includes assets whose primary demand comes from office, retail, residential, hotels, sporting events and airports.In addition to his business affiliations, Jeff is an active civic leader and strong supporter and board member of various charitable organizations such as the Special Olympics, Chabad House, Jewish Big Brother Big Sister, Crossroads for Kids, Save the Harbor, National Parking Association, Anti-Defamation League, Combined Jewish Philanthropies, Meriting Attention, and the American Cancer Society.We really enjoyed our discussion with Jeff, and the story behind the LAZ Parking empire did not disappoint. As discussed during the interview, it seems we can't travel a block or two without coming across a LAZ location. Jeff was candid in sharing the many highs and lows of his entrepreneurial journey, which he has been on alongside his two co-founders who happen to be his boyhood best friends. We learned a lot from Jeff about the operational side of parking business, a sector in which our Boston capital markets team has been increasingly active over the past several years and one that intrigues many real estate practitioners.For more info on LAZ Parking, please visit: www.lazparking.comPlease share with clients, colleagues and friends and thanks for tuning in!Tom Greeleyhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasgreeley/tom.greeley@nmrk.comMike Greeleyhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgreeley1Michael.greeley@nmrk.com

Frank H. McCourt, Jr. is a civic entrepreneur and the executive chairman and former CEO of McCourt Global, a private family company committed to building a better future through its work across the real estate, sports, technology, media, and capital investment industries, as well as its significant philanthropic activities. Frank is proud to extend his family’s 130-year legacy of merging community and social impact with financial results, an approach that started when the original McCourt Company was launched in Boston in 1893.He is a passionate supporter of multiple academic, civic, and cultural institutions and initiatives. He is the founder and executive chairman of Project Liberty, a far-reaching, $500 million initiative to transform the internet through a new, equitable technology infrastructure and rebuild social media in a way that enables users to own and control their personal data. The project includes the development of a groundbreaking, open-source internet protocol called the Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DSNP), which will be owned by the public to serve as a new web infrastructure. It also includes the creation of Project Liberty’s Institute (formerly The McCourt Institute,) launched with founding partners Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA, and Sciences Po in Paris, to advance research, bring together technologists and social scientists, and develop a governance model for the internet’s next era.Frank has served on Georgetown University’s Board of Directors for many years and, in 2013, made a $100 million founding investment to create Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. He expanded on this in 2021 with a $100 million investment to catalyze an inclusive pipeline of public policy leaders and put the school on a path to becoming tuition-free.Frank owns the French football club Olympique de Marseille (OM) and formerly owned the Los Angeles Dodgers. With family roots in the construction business dating back to the late 19th century, Frank has built upon this history with initiatives ranging from the development of Boston’s Seaport to large, mixed-use projects in Dallas, London, Miami, New York City, and elsewhere.Frank graduated from Georgetown University. He is married to Monica McCourt and is the proud father of seven.His book, OUR BIGGEST FIGHT: Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity, and Dignity in the Digital Age, was published by Crown on March 12, 2024.Our conversation with Frank was eye-opening, thought-provoking and inspiring. As a legendary figure in the Boston real estate industry who has truly ‘gone global’, Frank shared with us his story from the very beginnings in America for the McCourt family all the way through to today, where he has taken on the ambitious task of fixing the internet and the role technology is allowed to play in all of our lives.For more info on McCourt Global and Project Liberty, please visit: https://www.mccourt.com/ and https://www.projectliberty.io/Please share with clients, colleagues and friends and thanks for tuning in!Tom Greeleyhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasgreeley/tom.greeley@nmrk.comMike Greeleyhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgreeley1

Peter Merrigan is the Chief Executive Officer of Taurus Investment Holdings LLC, a global real estate private equity firm established in 1997 and headquartered in Boston, MA. Taurus focuses on strategic investments into value-add, core-plus, opportunistic and development opportunities. As CEO and a a member of the firms Investment Committee, Peter defines and guides Taurus in developing and executing investment strategies in multifamily, industrial, office , mixed-use and renewable energy sectors across the US and internationally. Peter has overseen the acquisition and development of more than 70 million square feet of commercial space to date with a value in excess of nearly $11 billion.Peter is an alum of the College of Holy Cross and received a Masters in Real Estate Development (MSRED) from MIT.Our conversation with Peter starts in the his early days with an internship in the research department of Coldwell Banker, working out of a Wellesley office that was the launching pad for many of the Boston market’s notable figures. Peter then describes the path that gave him his crash course in commercial real estate, starting with renting apartments for the Corcoran family, working for Berkeley Investments, and eventually his connection with the Reibling brothers, leading to a fruitful partnership that spanned several decades.Peter shares with Taurus’ powerful model of global equity syndication, a ‘machine’ that regularly yields $500m per annum in equity sourced from high net worth family offices from around the world. We also hear about Taurus’ leadership and long history of environmental stewardship, with a thorough explanation of how fusing clean energy, energy efficient technologies, and decarbonization efforts can not only benefit the planet but also create financial returns for Taurus and its investors.As the leader and owner of a renowned Boston-based firm that has evolved into a leading, forward-thinking global investor, we are thrilled to share Peter’s story and some of the behind-the-scenes anecdotes that brought Taurus to where it stands today.Please share with clients, colleagues and friends and thanks for tuning in!For more info on Taurus, please visit: https://www.tiholdings.com/Tom Greeleyhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasgreeley/tom.greeley@nmrk.comMike Greeleyhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgreeley1Michael.greeley@nmrk.com

John Fish is Chairman & CEO of Suffolk, a national real estate enterprise that builds, innovates and invests. Under John’s vision and leadership, Suffolk has grown into one of the most successful privately held builders in the United States, with $6 billion in revenue, 2,600 employees, and a value proposition, commitment to innovation and corporate culture that is redefining the built world. Suffolk truly is “America’s contractor” and manages some of the most complex, sophisticated projects in the country, serving clients in every major industry sector, including healthcare, life sciences, education, gaming, transportation/aviation, government, mission critical and commercial. With main offices in Boston (headquarters), New York City, Miami, West Palm Beach, Tampa, Estero, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Virginia and Maine, Suffolk is omnipresent in active real estate markets around the country.John is a fixture on numerous Boards focused on economic stability and real estate industry growth. He is the Chair of the Real Estate Roundtable, a non-partisan organization that represents the largest and most successful real estate developers in the country and is the most influential voice in Washington, D.C. for more equitable policies for economic growth.John also serves as Chair of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, sits on the Executive Committee of Mass General Brigham, and is the Chair of the Board at Boston College, his second time serving and the first non-alum to ever fulfill that role. In recent years, John has chaired both the Boston Chamber of Commerce and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and he is a founding member and director of the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership (MACP).Our conversation with John begins with an overview of the ever-innovating Suffolk, including a discussion around Suffolk’s platform verticals which support the core mission of the company. We then take a step back, and hear from John about his academic experiences at Tabor Academy and Bowdoin College, tackling and embracing his dyslexia, and his entry into the construction industry, in which the Fish family had deep roots. We then move onto the formation of Suffolk, the early years and the evolution of the company in its early years as a non-union business. John shares with us candid insights into the challenges and struggles of growing the company in a politically-charged construction environment, and the relationship building that served as a catalyst for long-term growth of the company.We cover a lot of ground outside of Suffolk, and John was generous in sharing his unique perspective on policy, politics, and economic issues at hand today in the US. Finally and maybe most importantly, we discuss John and Cyndy Fish’s extraordinary commitment to caring for their community, and their incredible leadership in countless philanthropic endeavors.This was one of our most-requested and highly-anticipated guests, and we sincerely appreciate John sharing his time and insights with us and our Good Dirt audience. We look forward to having him back again!For more information on Suffolk, visit www.suffolk.comTom Greeleyhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasgreeley/tom.greeley@nmrk.comMike Greeleyhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgreeley1

Rachel Diller serves as Senior Managing Director, Acquisitions and Co-Chief Investment Officer for Bridge Investment Group, a $50bn+ AUM multi product real estate investor, where she oversees the Bridge Workforce & Affordable Housing strategy. Rachel has over 20 years of experience in real estate and finance and has capitalized 120+ real estate projects worth $3.6 billion in 23 states. Rachel joined Bridge from UrbanView Capital, a specialist real estate fund manager dedicated to sustainable and impact investing. Prior to that, she was a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs in the firm’s Urban Investment Group (UIG), a principal investing platform that deploys capital to underserved domestic urban markets. Previously, she was a Managing Director in the Commercial Real Estate Group of Centerline Capital Group. Rachel began her career as a New York City Urban Fellow, developing transitional housing projects for New York City’s Department of Homeless Services, where she was the Director of Facility, Planning and Development. Rachel serves on the board of Corporation for Supportive Housing and is an Adjunct Professor in Columbia Business School’s Real Estate MBA Program. She earned a BA in Urban Studies from University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Columbia Business School.Our conversation with Rachel starts at Penn and moves into her ‘bleeding heart’ days in the public sector working for the City of New York. We hear about her pivot into the private sector and how her roots in housing affordability have stayed with her throughout her career and into her current role with Bridge. Rachel and Bridge’s novel approach to taking care of the community, not just the bricks and mortar, is not only commendable but is ultimately accretive to Bridges’ investments.We greatly enjoyed this conversation and working with Rachel and her team on their acquisition of The Suburban Boston Value-Add Portfolio in 2023. Tom Greeleyhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasgreeley/tom.greeley@nmrk.comMike Greeleyhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgreeley1Michael.greeley@nmrk.com

Bill Cummings is the founder and past president and chairman of Cummings Properties, one of the New England region’s most prominent private real estate investment firms. Since its founding in 1970, Cummings Properties has amassed a staggering portfolio of over 11 million square feet across 11 cities and towns north of Boston, and has built a reputation as a value-oriented, long-term holder of well-located real estate. While Bill is widely associated with this impressive collection of commercial properties (all owned debt-free), he now focuses most of his time and energy on The Cummings Foundation, the charitable juggernaut he oversees with his wife Joyce. Bill and Joyce made headlines as the first Massachusetts family to sign The Giving Pledge, a campaign started by Warren Buffet and Bill and Melinda Gates to encourage billionaires to give away at least half of their fortune to charity. Until then, the Cummings family had been largely flown under the radar, and this news led to many headlines with a “billionaire next door” theme.Our conversation with Bill starts with his upbringing in Medford and he shares with us anecdotes of the early entrepreneurial bug which never left him. We hear about his career start in sales, his successful journey in the fruit juice business, and his first forays into the real estate investment arena.He got his start in commercial real estate with just one small building, which he built next door to Old Medford Foods, and then led Cummings Properties' expansion into an 11 million-square-foot portfolio, now managed by more than 350 team members.In 1986, Bill and his wife, Joyce, established Cummings Foundation, which has grown to be one of the three largest private foundations in New England. The Cummings family today is known widely for their remarkable philanthropy and dedication to improving the communities around them.Among Bill's many honors are Real Estate Entrepreneur of the Year for New England from Ernst & Young, Edward H. Linde Public Service Award from the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties (NAIOP), and Real Estate Visionary of the Year from Boston Business Journal. He and Joyce were also inducted into the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce's Academy of Distinguished Bostonians.In 2020, Bill released the latest edition of his self-written memoir, Starting Small and Making It Big: An Entrepreneur's Journey to Billion-Dollar Philanthropist, which includes thoughtful reflections on the lessons he has learned about business, entrepreneurship, and philanthropy.Bill’s incredible generosity is legendary in the Boston area, and we feel privileged to have him join us for an episode of Good Dirt.Tom Greeleyhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasgreeley/tom.greeley@nmrk.comMike Greeleyhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgreeley1/michael.greeley@nmrk.com

Peter Palandjian is Chairman and CEO of Intercontinental Real Estate Corporation, an SEC-registered real estate investment manager with a portfolio of over 36 million square feet across 155 properties, over 15,000 multifamily units and current NAV of $10 billion+ and GAV $14 billion+. Peter oversees the affiliated Intercontinental operating companies, with primary responsibility for strategic planning and direction of all company activities. Intercontinental’s sole strategy it its flagship vehicle, United States Real Estate Investment Fund (“U.S. REIF”), currently the 7th-largest member of the NCREIF ODCE fund index (Open-Ended Diversified Core Equity). Prior to joining Intercontinental in 1993, Mr. Palandjian worked as the assistant to the CEO of Staples, Inc. and as an Associate Consultant with Bain & Company. Mr. Palandjian holds memberships with the Pension Real Estate Association (PREA); the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties (NAIOP); and the National Association of Real Estate Investment Managers (NAREIM). Mr. Palandjian has also been active on a number of corporate and not-for-profit boards, presently serving as a board member of several institutions including: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, O’Neill & Associates, Leader Bank, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (“LAANE”), Mikva Challenge, Harvard’s Varsity Club, the Taubman Center at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and the Purple Heart Service Foundation. Mr. Palandjian is also Trustee Emeritus at The Fessenden School and works on behalf of Harvard University as a volunteer undergraduate admissions interviewer. Peter earned his B.A. from Harvard University and M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, and was a two-time Harvard tennis Captain and world ranked player on the ATP tour. Our conversation with Peter begins with a discussion about his family, including his Armenian-Irish heritage and upbringing in Belmont, Mass. The family business, then known as Continental Construction, was started by his father who emigrated from Armenia with an accordion and $500 in his pocket. We pressed Peter on his illustrious tennis career, which he humbly described as a “journeyman” career but from which he took the tenets of resilience and rigorous effort into the real estate industry. Peter shares with us his time at Bain & Company, Staples Inc. and Harvard Business School, as well his entry into the real estate business alongside his father, who had been diagnosed with stomach cancer. A leadership transition occurred ahead of schedule, as Petros A. Palandjian’s health deteriorated and his cancer became terminal, and Peter was thrust into a tumultuous chapter involving numerous partnerships to unwind in a difficult market. We then dive into the tremendous growth of Intercontinental, with a focus on the evolution of its core business from fully integrated services and investment partnerships to private equity real estate, structured in fund-based investment management services. In 1999, Intercontinental became an SEC-registered Investment Advisor, clearing the path for a prolific but disciplined rise as a manager of institutional capital. Peter shares with us lessons learned along the way, including the early days of raising institutional money and the firm’s leadership in both private and public pension fund capital management. While Intercontinental is a household name in New England real estate circles, its national prominence is perhaps lesser known to Boston market participants. Peter was refreshingly candid, speaking openly about a few “bloopers”, life and deal lessons along the way, the importance of culture and teamwork at Intercontinental, and much more. He defers credit to his teammates and more than once references the “family” at Intercontinental. Of course, we also take Peter’s...

Jessica Hughes joined Tishman Speyer in 2018 and is currently responsible for the company’s operations in the Boston region including acquisitions, dispositions, asset management, and development. She joined Tishman Speyer from JLL, where she was a Managing Director in the Boston Capital Markets group and a member of JLL’s International Capital Group. Previously, she was a Senior Vice President at Beacon Capital Partners, responsible for acquisitions and dispositions in major U.S. markets, as well as establishing Beacon’s offshore offices in London and Paris. Jessica has a BA in History from Dartmouth College, where she captained the women’s golf team. Having served as President of NAIOP Massachusetts in 2022, she currently serves as Board Chair for the organization. Jess also serves as a board member at the Boston Center for the Arts and is an active participant in many regional charitable endeavors.Our conversation with Jess begins in her hometown of Lowell, Mass where she had early exposure to the economic development activities and related real estate development which were pushing the city forward. Excelling as a student and as a golfer, Jess shares with us the circumstances around a serendipitous corporate recruiting visit which introduced her to an executive involved in the historic Grand Central Terminal redevelopment project. Jess secured a job with LaSalle Partners in New York working on the final ‘punch list’ of Grand Central- an iconic project at the time that inspires her (and us) to this day.From there Jess shifted into an analyst role on the capital markets/ investment sales side of the business, a crash course which gave her the toolkit for a career as a ‘deal person’. Moving back to Boston, we discuss Jess’ time with Colliers and Trammell Crow before being recruited to join Beacon Capital Partners, kicking off a transformative chapter in her career which brought Jess to London and other international markets, and finally back home and back to the brokerage side for a productive stint at JLL. The bulk of our discussion is appropriately centered Jess’ move to Tishman Speyer, where she has done a tremendous job in building the firm’s Boston regional platform with a number of the market’s most exciting projects.We had a blast catching up with Jess and learned a lot about her path. While every path in this business is unique, Jessica’s journey in CRE has been fascinating and we are excited to see what the next decade holds for Jess and Tishman Speyer.Tom Greeleytom.greeley@nmrk.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasgreeley/Mike Greeleymichael.greeley@nmrk.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgreeley1/

Arthur Jemison – City of Boston/Boston Planning & Development Agency Arthur Jemison is the City of Boston’s Chief of Planning and the Director of the Boston Planning and Development Agency (‘BPDA’). A nationally respected public-private development leader, Chief Jemison came “back” to the City of Boston with 28 years of planning and affordable housing expertise, working with community members to create equitable places in Detroit, MI, Washington D.C. and Boston, MA. Most recently, Jemison served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), where he led the Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD) and served as the policy lead and HUD partner for American Cities, Counties, States, and other local units of government. Jemison joined HUD from the City of Detroit, where he was Group Executive for Planning, Housing & Development, leading the City’s efforts toward equitable growth. In early 2014, Jemison was recruited to lead the Housing & Revitalization Department for the City of Detroit, to assist as the City recovered from bankruptcy. In that capacity, Jemison led strategy, deployment and management of municipal housing policy and HUD entitlement funding. Before going to Detroit, Jemison held leadership positions at the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) for Massachusetts under Governor Deval Patrick. Prior to that, he held a variety of public and private-sector positions, including service at Massachusetts Port Authority, Boston Housing Authority, the then-Boston Redevelopment Authority, and in private development work at GLC Development Resources, as well as in the District of Columbia.Jemison has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He also holds a Master of City Planning degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a Public Policy and International Affairs (PPIA) Fellow. Jemison is also a 2021 Spirit of Detroit Award winner, a 2016 Michigan Chronicle Men / Women of Excellence awardee, and a member of the team recognized with the 2013 Robert Larson Public Policy Award for Workforce Housing from the Urban Land Institute, on behalf of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.Our conversation with Chief Jemison starts with his familial roots and upbringing in Detroit, MI and Amherst, MA and his college days at UMass Amherst, where he was first introduced to economics, urban planning and public policy. Through a fellowship opportunity for under-represented students, Arthur blazed his trail to MIT where he earned his Master in City Planning (MCP) degree, and turned his focus to real estate’s private sector, working initially in Miami for Arthur Andersen doing development feasibility consulting before following his calling in the public domain. Much of our discussion with Chief Jemison, not surprisingly, focuses on the Boston market and his important work as the Director of the BPDA and as the City’s Planning Chief. We enjoyed this candid discussion, in which Arthur stressed the importance of collaboration and cooperation between his team and the development community. We were encouraged by this discussion and hope you enjoy it as much as we did.For more information on the Boston Planning & Development Agency, please visit http://www.bostonplans.org/Mentioned in this Episode:What Arthur’s Reading Right now: Small Mercies (Dennis Lehane)New Book Alert: Look for Me There (Luke Russert)Required RE Reading: The Reichmanns: Family, Faith, Fortune, and the Empire of Olympia & YorkTom Greeleytom.greeley@nmrk.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasgreeley/Mike Greeleymichael.greeley@nmrk.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgreeley1/

Ben Butcher currently serves as Executive Chairman of the Board, following his 12-year tenure as Chief Executive Officer, President and Chairman of the Board of Directors since STAG’s formation in July 2010. Prior to the formation of STAG Industrial, Mr. Butcher oversaw the founding and growth of its predecessor business, serving as CEO and a member of the Board of Managers of STAG Capital Partners, LLC, STAG Capital Partners III, LLC, and their affiliates from 2003 to 2011. From 1999 to 2003, Mr. Butcher was engaged as a Private Equity Investor in real estate and technology. From 1997 to 1998, Mr. Butcher served as a Director at Credit Suisse First Boston, where he sourced and executed transactions for the principal transactions group (real estate debt and equity). Prior to that, he served as a Director at Nomura Asset Capital from 1993 to 1997, where he focused on marketing and business development for its commercial mortgage-backed securities group. Mr. Butcher serves as a member of the board of trustees and a member of the audit committee and compensation committee of Elme Communities (formerly WashREIT), an owner of multi-family properties in the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Mr. Butcher holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bowdoin College and a Master of Business Administration degree from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.Our conversation with Ben begins with his graduation from Bowdoin College and his path to the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Ben then talks us through his first role post-MBA in the paper business and his departure from that industry upon hearing about opportunities in the commercial real estate brokerage arena. Ben then took on a variety of entrepreneurial development pursuits, a crash course in the ‘blocking and tackling’ of commercial real estate dealmaking. From there, Ben’s interest in making the jump into real estate finance was piqued when a friend from Tuck recruited him using the overture: “it’s playtime without adult supervision.” That kicked off Ben’s colorful career with Nomura and Credit Suisse First Boston, in the go-go days of CMBS lending and charging hard with the era’s most prolific lenders.Finally, we get to the formation of STAG Capital Partners upon Ben and his partners’ recognition of an opportunity in the industrial market, and the fight through numerous headwinds to successfully complete the platform’s IPO as STAG Industrial (NYSE: $STAG). STAG Industrial has grown significantly since its IPO to become a highly-regarded industrial REIT, owning and operating over 111.7 million square feet across 562 buildings in 41 states, with a 12/31/22 market cap of $8.4 billion.This was an unfiltered, high-voltage conversation and we appreciate Ben’s candor in sharing his story with us!As Discussed: Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Thunder Road’ Tribute to Tim Russert (June 2008)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96ul2ivcmDQPlease rate, review and subscribe to Good Dirt and share with your friends!  Mike Greeley Michael.greeley@nmrk.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgreeley1/   Tom Greeley Tom.greeley@nmrk.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasgreeley/

Mike Byrne is AEW’s Chief Investment Officer and Head of Private Equity and Private Debt in North America. He has been with AEW since 2003, and today is responsible for overseeing all of AEW’s commingled funds, separate accounts and direct investments in North America. In this capacity he is responsible for the strategic direction and oversight of the Firm’s portfolio management, acquisitions, capital markets and asset management functions in addition to managerial responsibility of the Private Equity Group resources. Mr. Byrne also serves on AEW’s Investment Committee, Risk Management Committee and Governance Committee in North America, and he is a member of AEW’s Global Investment Committee. Prior to joining AEW, he was a member of the real estate team at the Pension Reserve Investment Management Board (“Mass PRIM”), where he managed the pension fund’s real estate and timber portfolios. Prior to that he worked at Citigroup in the real estate investment banking group. Mr. Byrne is a member of the Urban Land Institute (U.L.I.) and NAREIM, and a graduate of Dartmouth College.Our conversation with Mike begins with his graduation from Dartmouth, where he captained the men’s hockey team, and entered the workforce at Salomon Smith Barney (Citigroup) as an investment banking analyst in the Real Estate & Lodging Group. With his first day in the real estate group falling on 9/11, Mike shares with us how this made for a strange start to a career. Amidst the ensuing capital markets turmoil, Mike then returned to his local roots and joined Mass PRIM as an analyst supporting the pension plan’s real estate and timber allocation strategies. We discuss how this gave Mike a unique perspective and foundation for the balance of his career, all of which has been spent in the real estate investment management business with AEW which he joined almost 20 years ago in 2003.The bulk of our discussion centers around the tremendous growth and success of AEW over the years. Mike’s passion for AEW shines through as he shares with us observations on company culture, operating partner selection, the firm’s innovative menu of investment strategies, investing through cycles and AEW’s current outlook on the market from Mike’s perspective as CIO.This was a terrific look into AEW, one of the world’s largest real estate investment managers with almost $100 billion of assets under management, 830 employees in 18 offices across the globe, and over 800 institutional clients. Mike Byrne is one of the market’s most prominent and respected investment management professionals, and this episode makes it clear why. We look forward to having Mike and his teammates back to Good Dirt as we know we’ve just scratched the surface.For more information on AEW please visit https://www.aew.com/*** As mentioned in the episode intro, the Bisnow Boston Healthcare Real Estate Summit will be held on Weds, May 24th. Jennifer Wong from AEW, Kyle O’Connor from MLL Capital and Brian Carlisle from Celera Properties will participate in a panel moderated by Good Dirt co-host Mike Greeley of Newmark’s Healthcare Capital Markets team and NE Medical-Academic Practice Group. For more info: https://www.bisnow.com/events/boston/healthcare/boston-healthcare-real-estate-summit-7823***Please rate, review and subscribe to Good Dirt and share with your friends!  Mike Greeley Michael.greeley@nmrk.com

Maureen Joyce is Managing Director and Head of U.S. Real Estate Equity Asset Management for Barings Real Estate, the real estate platform of global investment manager and MassMutual subsidiary Barings ($347+ billion AUM). Maureen is responsible for the investment performance and strategic direction of all real estate equity assets across all U.S. mandates and serves on the Barings Real Estate U.S. Private Equity Investment Committee. Prior to joining the firm in 2021, Maureen served as the Head of Asset Management & Separate Accounts at AEW, where she was responsible for asset management, financial reporting and accounting as well as the firm’s Separate Account business. She also served on the Investment and Risk Management Committees and led AEW’s ESG+R efforts as co-chair of the ESG+R Steering Committee, a topic which we dig into in the podcast. Prior to AEW, Maureen worked in real estate equity at CBRE Investors, Spaulding & Slye, and Copley Real Estate Advisors, gaining experience in a variety of roles since entering the industry in 1986. Maureen holds a B.A. in Economics from Trinity College and an M.B.A. from Boston College Carroll School of Management. She is active in a variety of professional associations, including Urban Land Institute’s (ULI) Technology Product Council; Women’s Leadership Advisory (WLI) Board; National Association for Industrial and Office Parks; and National Association of Real Estate Investment Managers (NAREIM).Our conversation with Maureen starts with her graduation from Trinity, upon which she took an accounting role in the TV business despite having no formal training. As became a hallmark of her career, she learned on the fly and quickly made the jump into commercial real estate, serving a variety of roles at Copley Real Estate Advisors, an experience she credits with her exceptional well-roundedness and in retrospect, a crash course in the shifting institutional investing world. Copley was pioneering the investment of third party pension fund capital into real estate, a shift in the market for which she had a front row seat, and soon enough, a leading role. It is hard to imagine a day when pension fund capital did not dominate the CRE markets, and Maureen’s perspective on how this market evolved will be a history lesson for many of our listeners. Maureen is without a doubt one of Boston’s leading real estate figures, but her reach, influence and of course, her portfolio, go far beyond the Northeast. We look forward to having Maureen and her team back for additional episodes, as we just scratched the surface with one of the market’s most respected institutions.For more information on Barings please visit www.barings.com IMPORTANT: At the end of the episode, we remember our friend, teammate and American hero, U.S. Navy SEAL Michael T. Ernst, who was tragically lost in a training accident on February 19th, 2023. Please consider supporting Ernie’s wife and children through the fund linked here, administered by the Navy SEALs Foundation- it is the least we can all do to honor this ultimate sacrifice. https://impact.navysealfoundation.org/give/469518/#!/donation/checkoutPlease rate, review and subscribe to Good Dirt and share with your friends!  Mike Greeley Michael.greeley@nmrk.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgreeley1/   Tom Greeley

Episode #04 features Jonathan Davis, CEO & Founder of The Davis Companies, and Stephen Davis, the firm’s President. Without a doubt, Boston-based Davis is regarded as one of the country’s savviest real estate investment groups, active across the asset class spectrum, the country, and the capital stack. Investing for its own account and on behalf of private and institutional investors, Davis has successfully navigated six distinct market cycles, finding in each instance new opportunities to create value. The numbers are impressive: over $11.4 billion invested in gross asset value, including 35 million+ SF of commercial space and 12,500+ residential units, 240+ separate investments, and $1.9 billion raised across its first four value-add funds.Jonathan Davis, a bona fide legend in the industry, has over 45 years of CRE experience. He plays a central role in setting company strategy and in the identification and evaluation of new opportunities. Jon is an acclaimed leader in the civic and non-profit arena, serving on the board of The Boys & Girls Club of Boston, where he is also the former board chair, in addition to the boards of public broadcasting station WBUR and the Pension Real Estate Association Foundation. As Davis’ President, Stephen oversees management and execution of all aspects of Davis’ Investments, Development and Asset Management activities. Stephen is also a member of Davis’ Investment Committee, an area of the firm’s process and execution which we dig into with him in this episode. An attorney by training, Stephen was a member of Davis’ development group where he was involved in all facets of Davis’ broad array of ground-up and redevelopment projects, and before that, as a member of the firm’s legal team. Stephen received his JD from Georgetown University and Masters in Real Estate Development from MIT. In keeping with the family tradition of civic leadership, Stephen is the current chair of the board of directors of Heading Home the largest family homelessness services provider in Massachusetts.This conversation is a must-listen for anyone in the real estate business, and we cover everything from Jon’s early deals including the Brimmer Street Garage (the first ever parking garage condo conversion in the US), the firm’s expansion into the fund management business, the development of the Omni Boston Hotel in the Seaport (Boston’s largest since 1984), and much more. We also go into the Davis family’s engrained belief in tikkun olam, Judaism’s concept of “repairing the world” and finish up, appropriately, with some chatter about Chris Stapleton, Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne. This is a duo that has achieved spectacular success on behalf of the firm and its investors, matched only by their commitment to giving back to the communities around them. It was our pleasure to sit down with Jonathan and Stephen and we look forward to Round 2. For more info of The Davis Companies, visit www.thedaviscompanies.com and be sure to check out the Omni next time you’re in the Seaport!Please rate, review and subscribe to Good Dirt and share with your friends!  Mike Greeley Michael.greeley@nmrk.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgreeley1/   Tom Greeley Tom.greeley@nmrk.com

Bruce Percelay is chairman and founder of The Mount Vernon Company, a real estate investment firm considered among the leading multifamily investors in Massachusetts. The privately held company has grown over the past 30 years to include a portfolio including thousands of apartments, 5 hotels, and a variety of specialty commercial and vacation properties. Our conversation with Bruce starts in his advertising days, when he helped manage the marketing efforts for Parker Brother's Games, Keds Sneakers, and Converse Athletic Shoes. He is also credited with the development of the idea for Sunkist Orange Soda, the most successful new soft drink launch in the history of the industry. This is also when Bruce made his first real estate play, a $28,000 condo on the “wrong side of Beacon Hill” which he improved on nights and weekends and subsequently flipped, doubling his investment. Bruce admittedly never looked back and reinvested his proceeds into additional properties, using his marketing savvy (pioneering the concept of “staging”, with a best-selling book to prove it) combined with an eye for neighborhood demographics to amass one of the most impressive privately held apartment portfolios in the region. The discussion then gets even more interesting as we learn about the transformative development of Allston’s Green District and then delve into Bruce’s hospitality portfolio, which includes several acclaimed boutique hotels on Nantucket and the visionary Revolution Hotel in Boston’s South End, in addition to others in Newport RI, Portsmouth NH and coastal Maine. We continue the Nantucket thread to discuss perhaps Bruce’s most interesting asset- N Magazine and its digital affiliates, the island’s luxury lifestyle publication with a print circulation over 90,000 and online audience of over 500,000. Finally, we get into Bruce’s philanthropic endeavors, leading the charge to build replacement facilities for both the Nantucket Whaling Museum and Nantucket Cottage Hospital, chairing the board of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate, and much more. From mixed-use projects in Portsmouth to high-end residential in Palm Beach, Bruce is as multidimensional as he is savvy, and it is a true pleasure to consider him a friend and client. There’s certainly only one Bruce Percelay and we think you’ll enjoy this look behind the curtain! For more information on The Mount Vernon Company visit www.mvernon.com and be sure to visit 21 Broad & 76 Main when on Nantucket! // Please rate, review and subscribe to Good Dirt and share with your friends!Mike Greeley Michael.greeley@nmrk.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgreeley1/   Tom Greeley Tom.greeley@nmrk.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasgreeley/

Brian Kavoogian is Managing Partner of National Development, a vertically integrated real estate investment, development and property management firm and one of the most respected investors in the Greater Boston market. Brian is focused on the firm’s investment strategy and oversight of its investment management platform, which has acquired/developed over $7 billion of assets within Funds I-IV and has just raised its Fund V with (on date of recording) $450 million of newly raised equity to be deployed in the coming years. In 2006, Brian co-founded National Development’s investment management platform, Charles River Realty Investors, which upon the close of its fourth fund in 2019 merged with National Development.  Prior to forming Charles River, Brian was a Principal of The Davis Companies, a Boston-based investment and development firm and from 1984 to 2000, Brian was with Holliday Fenoglio Fowler (HFF) where he oversaw the capitalization of many of Boston’s notable commercial projects. Our conversation with Brian starts in his Tufts University days and covers everything from early career development, the jump to the principal side, raising Fund I and subsequent funds, the evolution of the Charles River/National Development platform, to finding opportunity in a variety of market conditions and across asset classes. Brian is a universally respected investor and a trusted advisor to many, including Governor Charlie Baker as the Vice Chair of Mass Development and to Tufts University as Trustee Emeritus (and perhaps most notably, to the Greeley brothers). Brian will be a regular guest on Good Dirt and we look forward to going deeper with him on a wide variety of topics. For more info on National Development visit www.natdev.com // Please rate, review and subscribe to Good Dirt and share with your friends!Mike GreeleyMichael.greeley@nmrk.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgreeley1/Tom GreeleyTom.greeley@nmrk.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasgreeley/

Kyle Warwick is a founder and managing principal of Redgate, a leading real estate investment, advisory and owners’ representative firm active in New England, the Mid-Atlantic and North Carolina.  Redgate has completed over 141 development projects along the East Coast. Kyle oversees the firm’s Investment Management and Development businesses and has led the effort to raise two GP co-investment funds: New Urban Fund I (fully deployed) and New Urban Fund II which will leverage over $1B of total development value.Kyle chairs Redgate’s Investment Committee, initiating and overseeing all Investment Development activity which has totaled over 27 million square feet since the firm’s formation. Kyle is widely regarded as a talented developer whose projects have injected critical momentum into neighborhoods that have historically lacked institutional real estate investment; we talk about balancing the goals of local neighborhood stakeholders, municipalities, and investors, and structuring winning deals that set the foundation for the development of new urban nodes that, when delivered, enhance the economic and social vitality of the area.Prior to co-founding Redgate, Kyle was the Director of Investment Development at Spaulding & Slye/JLL, which he joined in 1994 and served the company in several leadership capacities and oversaw the firm’s development group and 250-person regional office.  Kyle is one of the most respected developers active in the New England, Mid-Atlantic and North Carolina markets, and we are grateful that he shared his story with us. For more info on Redgate visit www.redgate-re.com // Please rate, review and subscribe to Good Dirt and share with your friends!Mike GreeleyMichael.greeley@nmrk.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgreeley1/Tom GreeleyTom.greeley@nmrk.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasgreeley/

Welcome to Good Dirt: Conversations with Leaders in Real Estate & Beyond - interviews with some of the most interesting and respected players in the commercial real estate industry, with a focus on investors, developers, and equity allocators that are shaping the built world around us. Hosted by Mike Greeley and Tom Greeley, brothers and teammates within the Newmark capital markets platform.Because the real estate industry is hyper-connected to all sectors of commerce, we will also regularly be hosting friends from “beyond the business”, including luminaries from the private equity and venture capital arenas all the way to restauranteurs, consumer retail entrepreneurs, tech founders and a few politicians.We look forward to bringing you discussions that profile our guests’ career journeys, investment strategies, building and growing of their businesses and thoughts on current market opportunities, and we’ll also delve into human interest topics, non-work pursuits, daily routines, and (perhaps most importantly) giving back. Join us as we learn from the industry’s best and brightest and have a few laughs along the way!We hope these discussions will be noteworthy for plenty of people beyond our reach, so please share with friends, colleagues, and clients if an episode is especially topical. We also hope you’ll consider sharing this podcast with aspiring commercial real estate professionals, as each episode will be a case study on its own and in the aggregate, a crash course in this dynamic industry.