Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign hi, I'm John Ko and welcome.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: To icons of D.C. area real estate, a one on one interview show featuring the backgrounds, career trajectories and insights of the top luminaries in the Washington D.C.
[00:00:23] Speaker A: Area Real estate market.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: The purpose of the show was to explore their journeys, how they got started, the pivotal moments that shaped their careers, and the lessons they've learned along the way. We also dive into their current work, industry trends, and some fascinating behind the scenes stories that bring unique perspective to our industry. Commercial Real Estate before we dive into today's conversation, I'd like to share some exciting news.
The icons of D.C. area Real estate Podcast is now part of the Iconic Journey in cre, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting professionals at every stage of their real estate careers.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: With our new website www.ijcre.org, we're expanding.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: Opportunities for everyone in the industry.
If you're a student or new to the industry, I encourage you to join the Iconic Journey and CRE community, an exclusive space for learning, mentorship and networking.
If you're an early to mid career professional navigating career transitions, our career coaching curriculum provides structured guidance to help you move forward with confidence.
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To learn more about our community, career coaching or sponsorship opportunities, please visit our new website, www.ijcre.org. thank you for being part of this journey and now let's get started with today's guest.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: Welcome to another episode of Icons of DCRE Real Estate.
Today our guest is Hilary Goldfarb.
Hillary is the Senior Managing Director and Head of Development for the Mid Atlantic Region of the Rockefeller Group.
In this pivotal role, she leads Rockefeller Group's regional office in Washington, D.C.
and is primarily responsible for growing the company's development portfolio by sourcing a diverse range of multifamily office and mixed use projects, including a significant focus on industrial development.
Rockefeller Group, with a legacy rooted in the development of Rockefeller center in New York, takes development risk and posts development returns through new construction, repositioning and adaptive reuse.
Under Hillary's leadership, the Mid Atlantic pipeline includes projects totaling over $1.8 billion in cost.
She has overseen the success of several key developments, including the borough Tower in Tyson's Corner, Virginia, a 437,000 square foot trophy office building and joint venture with Meridian Group, 1901 L Street Northwest in downtown Washington, which is the first well certified office building in the city that's also a joint venture with Meridian group.
The transformative 600 Fifth Street Northwest redevelopment, which is the former Metro headquarters, a 400,000 square foot premier office building in the heart of the Penn Quarter.
This project is a partnership with Stonebridge.
It's currently the only new office building under construction in Washington set to deliver in the next two years and is a 50% pre leased to Crowell and Mooring law firm and a massive partnership with the Matton companies to develop 5 million square feet of industrial space near the Port of Virginia, leveraging Rockefeller Group's four decades of Port centric development expertise before joining Rockefeller Group In 2018, Hillary held significant positions as Senior Vice President at Pezuto Development Company and Development Director at Promark Real Estate.
She even worked at the Corcoran Gallery of Art during a capital campaign, demonstrating her early engagement with the impactful urban initiatives.
Hillary holds a Master's in Urban Planning from Harvard's Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor's degree from Princeton University.
I cite up front that I've known her for about eight to 10 years and have always been impressed with her intellect, confidence, understanding.
Hillary believes in the power of real estate to improve lives, emphasizing collaboration, diversity of experience and creative problem solving. She lives by her father's adage hard work gets noticed and beat beats luck, coincidence and favors.
Please join me in welcoming Hilary to the podcast. So thank you Hilary for joining me for the icons of D.C. area Real estate Podcast.
Ever since I met you at a uli event probably 10 years ago, I'm guessing I've been impressed with your intellect, confidence, understanding and kindness and also had the opportunity to work to be with you in a mastermind group with several of our friends and colleagues as well. Thank you for joining me.
[00:06:35] Speaker C: Thank you for having me.
[00:06:37] Speaker A: Could you begin by describing your role as Senior Managing Director and Head of Development for the Mid Atlantic Region at Rockefeller Group, including your primary responsibilities such as leading the regional office in Washington and sourcing multifamily office and mixed use projects, if you would.
[00:06:55] Speaker C: Well, thank you for having me today. I am humbled to be part of your podcast. There have been greats before me and I'm sure greats after, so thank you for including me.
[00:07:06] Speaker A: You're welcome.
[00:07:06] Speaker C: I run our DC office for ROC and our development business in the Mid Atlantic. So that includes everything from sourcing and acquisitions through entitlement and design, financing, capitalization and ultimately disposition.
And the our book of business includes, I think what you would think of as Rockefeller mixed use, highly urban catalytic trophy product in office and multifamily. But we've also stood up an industrial business here in Mid Atlantic which has been pretty exciting over the past couple of years. So the job is managing teams, managing people, managing projects. It's exciting, gets me up out of bed every day.
[00:07:51] Speaker A: Is the Rockefeller platform consistent across the country or does it vary based on region as far as emphasis and focus?
[00:07:59] Speaker C: Oh, that's a good question.
What is consistent? There are six of me nationally that run various geographies and regions. And what is consistent is that our job is to find the most compelling deals in our region.
We are not ideological about product type, about micro market.
And that's really exciting because it empowers our regional teams to be very creative and to meet their markets. There are some consistencies. For example, multifamily and industrial are our probably largest development product type in our pipelines today.
But I think the product type can vary. We have build to rent for example in Arizona. We have everything from tippity top of the market trophy condos in Manhattan to here in the Mid Atlantic, what I would call more bread and butter stick built slab on grade wood frame product type. So I think the product type can vary, but that consistency is to find the most compelling real estate development deals in your region.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: Do you have a global market analysis group that kind of does an overview of the country and where to focus and what to look at?
[00:09:14] Speaker C: That's a very good question. From a new markets perspective it's that we are always growing. And so one of my mentors from my busuto days used to always say you can grow in only two ways, by product type or by geography. And so. So while it's not sort of a centralized global data group or analysis group, it's incumbent on the regions to grow either by pushing and innovating on product type or into new sub markets in one's region or expanding one.
[00:09:48] Speaker A: So you have autonomy for that?
[00:09:49] Speaker C: Pretty much. I mean we have checks and balances, we have an investment committee process and so outlandish ideas.
[00:09:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
You know, how often do you have, you know, Japanese, you know, people come to visit and look at properties. Are they pretty involved, you know, the Mitsubishi ownership? Yeah.
[00:10:09] Speaker C: Yes. And I think we are actually quite fortunate here in the Mid Atlantic. We have Mitsubishi affiliates and relationships that invest in our projects. And we also have a stable of true third party but Japanese LPs. And so I would say about every two or three weeks we have Japanese colleagues from one of these investors that are either doing project tours or are partner monthly partners meetings. And it's very project specific, but we maintain a stable of Japanese investors both within Mitsubishi and without.
[00:10:46] Speaker A: That's great.
So now let's shift to your personal situation, your origin story a little bit if we can.
You grew up in Garrett Park, Maryland, which is very close to where I live. So talk about that a little bit, your family and all that.
[00:11:01] Speaker C: Sure. I am a native Washingtonian to this region. We moved to Montgomery county for the schools when I was in elementary school.
[00:11:07] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:11:08] Speaker C: Garrett park is our first nuclear free zone. I was a Garrett park ladybug on swim team. And I went to Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville.
[00:11:18] Speaker A: IB program.
[00:11:19] Speaker C: It was back then it was only in Richard Montgomery and then math and science was somewhere else. So, you know, I was. I was. I really hit my stride early. I was both in the marching band and on math team. I also played sports, which probably saved me from social suicide. But. But I am a product of Montgomery county public schools. I was raised here. Most of my career has been here in the region too.
But for a couple years up in Massachusetts, up in Boston.
[00:11:47] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:11:49] Speaker C: But it's a city and a region that I love, that I am raising a family in now I'm firmly committed to and I believe in.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: So why Princeton?
[00:12:00] Speaker C: So I have a twin brother.
I have a twin brother. Both Nate and I were Princetonians. We were Tigers. I like to joke. The admissions policy was much different back then. I am very good at filling out applications and entitlements. So maybe there's a thread to be pulled there there. But. But Nate is wicked, wicked smart. You know, 1600 on his SATs type.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: Did he go to Montgomery as well?
[00:12:22] Speaker C: And he. Yes, we both went to Richard Montgomery. So I may or may not have drafted on his momentum back then. I don't think they accepted and then denied one point.
[00:12:30] Speaker A: What about sports? Did you play sports there?
[00:12:32] Speaker C: Not at college. Not in college. I played club sports. I played field hockey.
[00:12:36] Speaker A: Yeah. I think you probably know my son went there too.
[00:12:38] Speaker C: I do.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: Yeah. He swam there, so that helped.
[00:12:41] Speaker C: We have rapped historically about my freshman year roommate who was a swimmer. You may not remember that though. But.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: Right.
[00:12:48] Speaker C: No. It's a wonderful place. It's a Wonderful place to thrive and, you know, liberal arts education, despite a lot of the challenges and difficulties of what's happening today on our Ivy League campuses. You know, it teaches you how to think. It teaches you how to be a real person functioning in the real world.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: So what did you write your thesis on?
[00:13:08] Speaker C: Museums. Really?
I was for a hot second architecture major, and then I transferred to art and archeology. I was in Syria on archaeological digs.
[00:13:19] Speaker A: Oh, cool.
[00:13:20] Speaker C: I really like dirt.
[00:13:23] Speaker A: So that's where real estate development comes from.
[00:13:25] Speaker C: So, yeah, there may be some consistency there.
So my senior thesis. What was your son's thesis on?
[00:13:31] Speaker A: He didn't write one because he was in engineering. He didn't have to.
[00:13:33] Speaker C: Oh, my goodness. It's a rite of passage, though. I mean, you know, there's something.
[00:13:37] Speaker A: If you're an engineer, you're working pretty hard.
[00:13:39] Speaker C: No, no, sure. For sure. Oh, wow.
I do. I do.
I was young.
I wouldn't want to reread my thesis today. But it actually, I think conceptually the idea of our nonprofit institutions as. And this is right after, you know, Frank Gehry's Bilbao, and that museums and strong organizations can catalyze urban regeneration and growth and are very important for the life of our cities. I mean, that was something that apparently I was drinking the Kool Aid a long time ago.
[00:14:20] Speaker A: I didn't realize they had an architectural school.
[00:14:22] Speaker C: They do. It's academic architecture. There are on faculty.
There are certainly practitioners, but it's a very academic program.
[00:14:33] Speaker A: So where did you catch the real estate bug? Is it there or somewhere else?
[00:14:36] Speaker C: No, no. I had always thought I was gonna go back to grad school to become Indiana Jones and get a doctorate in archaeology, but I was working at the Corcoran Gallery of Art during the Frank Gehry, David Levy days for the Capitol campaign to build a.
To restore the historic Beaux Arts building and then to build an expansion. And watching that project, the ups and the downs, was really impactful for me because you realize how many disciplines. I mean, the Corcoran and the museum, they had reached, I don't know, about a half of probably the Capitol campaign. They had a fully designed set of construction documents, full approvals from the Commission of Fine Arts. And when that project fell apart or went off the rails, you realize just how many disciplines and what's involved in changing our cities and creating.
Impacting the built environment. And so that experience was really huge.
[00:15:33] Speaker A: Learning experience for you.
[00:15:35] Speaker C: Well, and when you're that young in your career. Right. I mean, there's nothing you learn from More now, today, I don't really want a project that falls apart because then it's my butt to kick. But back then, you just learned so much.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: So that's a financial failure, wasn't it?
[00:15:48] Speaker C: I mean, it was a combination of things. I think like any good capital campaign, the longer the dot com bubble burst. And so some of the pledges dried up and, you know, each year that goes by, costs go up and political environments change and all that kind of stuff. So there's. There's a lot to unpack there. But it is an organization that I hugely believe in. I mean, as America's first museum, the collection is just astounding. I got married at the Corcoran.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: Oh, really?
[00:16:17] Speaker C: I was very young back then. They. Because there's only two private, or were only two privately funded museums, museums in D.C. at the time.
So because we were chronically understaffed and underpaid, you had this perk. After you worked there for four years, you got a free facility rental.
So Mike and I got married there.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: That's great.
[00:16:35] Speaker C: And I figured, you know, it's a historic beaux arts building, it's always going to be around. I mean, little did I know the whole GW acquisition and all that stuff, but the building is still there, so we can go and reminisce. We don't, but the idea that we could.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: So was this right after Princeton or was it.
[00:16:54] Speaker C: This was my first job after college, and actually it is one of my great mentors and who I admire more than, you know, among the greats, the icons in real estate in D.C. bob Peck is the one who actually introduced me to the Corcoran.
[00:17:07] Speaker A: Oh, that's great.
So then you went on to the Harvard School. Right? Was that right after that?
[00:17:14] Speaker C: Well, yes, sequentially I went from the Corcoran to the gsd.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: Right, and what drove you there?
[00:17:25] Speaker C: I applied for a planning degree. And so at this point, I knew that I wanted a more comprehensive than any individual discipline. And so the GSD has a program that's pretty extraordinary in that it's a studio based, architecture based urban planning program, but you can cross register with public policy courses at the Kennedy School. And there was a great affordable housing program and finance program at mit, and you can cross register. So it was very interdisciplinary.
[00:17:55] Speaker A: So did you take advantage of that when you were there?
[00:17:57] Speaker C: I did.
So you know, Mike, my husband at the time, he was the online editor for a newspaper supporting us. When I went back to school, we lived in a triple decker as. As one does in Somerville, Massachusetts.
Everybody lives In Somerville once and I went to school. It's where I learned how to cook because we were on a budget.
[00:18:15] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:18:16] Speaker C: Brazilian bakeries, Italian food, seafood. I can cook.
[00:18:20] Speaker A: Boston's a great place for young people.
A lot of fun there.
[00:18:25] Speaker C: When we moved back here, it was the food that I really. The food and the ingredients that I missed the most.
[00:18:32] Speaker A: So the first time I went there, my cousin lived there and we went to the no Name restaurant, which is on the water. Do you remember that? A long line of picnic tables and lobster and the whole bit.
[00:18:42] Speaker C: The Barking Crab is one of my. From a view known, unparalleled view. There was an Italian place in Medford called Little Vinnies that was also a favorite of ours. And some hole in the walls fun.
[00:18:56] Speaker A: So what brought you back to D.C. then?
[00:19:00] Speaker C: The 2008 presidential campaign for my husband. He did a couple years for me up north and then we came back here.
And I mean, the irony is that I'm from here, Mike's from Philly, but I'm from here. I grew up here. My family's here. But today it's his business and it's his job that keeps us here more than mine.
[00:19:18] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:19:18] Speaker C: But, you know, once you fall in love all over again with your city as an adult, it gets. It's hooks in you all over again.
[00:19:27] Speaker A: So you moved back in 2008, you.
[00:19:29] Speaker C: Said, which is, you know, an extraordinary time to get your first real estate job. Yeah.
[00:19:33] Speaker A: And that year was a little unusual in our business, too.
[00:19:36] Speaker C: Of course, you know, everybody always says location, location, location, but I really think it's. And especially working for a company like I do now, it's timing, timing, timing. Right. And 2008 was quite a year to get your first real estate job. I'll say that.
[00:19:52] Speaker A: And so did you start with Promark then? I said, yeah. Okay.
Tell the listeners who Promark is what they do.
[00:20:00] Speaker C: Promark, it's an extraordinary family business.
Partners include the Eisingers, Rob and Bob, as well as Tom Fauquier from Vanguard.
Historically, the Eisinger Kilbane families developed the Lumber rail.
So they have some extraordinary sites approximate to Redline Metro stops which followed that alignment. And so in 2008, you know, the planning and entitlements are a wonderful way to keep moving forward, especially in jurisdictions that have very high regulatory environments and things take time. So that was a very good time to systematically go through their portfolio, figure out how do we tee things up and get things ready so that when the cycle comes back.
[00:20:50] Speaker A: Had John Kilbane passed at that point.
[00:20:52] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:20:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay.
[00:20:54] Speaker C: I did know him growing up. I had met him.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: Oh, you did. Okay.
[00:20:57] Speaker C: And the family.
[00:20:58] Speaker A: I almost financed the. It was the guest quarters hotel at the time.
[00:21:01] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, of course. Of course.
[00:21:03] Speaker A: Now the Residence Inn, I think they're. Yeah. Way back.
[00:21:08] Speaker C: But, you know, I do think to land, you know, at the end of the day, I know it's bricks and sticks, but it's all about people and just what extraordinary people with a long history in this area and a commitment to where they live. And a commitment. Commitment to doing the right thing and building smart.
[00:21:29] Speaker A: How did you meet him?
[00:21:30] Speaker C: I grew up with Robbie.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: Oh, I see. Got it.
[00:21:33] Speaker C: Richard Montgomery. Rockets. Right. There you go. Rockets.
[00:21:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay.
[00:21:37] Speaker C: Although I should say Rob.
[00:21:39] Speaker A: Yeah. At this point. Yeah.
So there for what, two years, three years?
[00:21:47] Speaker C: Yeah, something like that. Before I met Toby Basuto.
[00:21:50] Speaker A: Where'd you meet Toby?
[00:21:51] Speaker C: At the dentist.
[00:21:52] Speaker A: No.
How could that be?
[00:21:55] Speaker C: No, they were recruiting and hiring, but coincidentally, as I was interviewing with Toby, I had an interview set up, I guess, and we accidentally ran into each other at the dentist a week or two before the interview.
So the rest is history.
[00:22:13] Speaker A: Right.
[00:22:14] Speaker C: We ended up having. And it was actually a dentist here in D.C.
we ended up both kind of with novocaine and, you know.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: Cause he lives in Baltimore, so. That's interesting.
[00:22:25] Speaker C: I know. I don't know why his. Now that I'm thinking about that. Why on earth was he at a dentist in dc? I really don't remember.
That was about how long ago that was 17 years ago. 16 or 17 years ago. So I do not remember why.
[00:22:39] Speaker A: So he. At that point, was he running the development group at that point there, or was he before that?
[00:22:44] Speaker C: No, no, no. He was running the development group.
Straz was an svp.
I got it in the development shop.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: Okay. And that's where you came on.
[00:22:53] Speaker C: And that's where I came on.
[00:22:55] Speaker A: Okay.
And what did you start working on when you joined there?
[00:22:59] Speaker C: Crown Farm.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: Oh, sure.
[00:23:01] Speaker C: Yeah, Crown Farm. So I actually, looking back, I don't know if it was because of my Montgomery county roots or just the coincidence of what was teed up and starting at the time, but Crown Farm was one of my first projects.
[00:23:18] Speaker A: Did you work with JBG Rosenfeld on that at all? Yeah.
[00:23:22] Speaker C: Christa Diaconi and.
[00:23:24] Speaker A: Right. Grant.
[00:23:25] Speaker C: The crew Grant.
[00:23:26] Speaker A: He had.
[00:23:27] Speaker C: But I was young. I mean, I was super green, super young. I'll never forget. And this is, I think has really shaped my thinking about, you know, you get thrown into the deep end and you either sink or swim. And so much of what we do is teachable and.
But I, it was my.
I started on a Tuesday and on Thursday I walked into a development agreement negotiation, JBGR and Busuto and there were attorneys, but I didn't realize walking in.
[00:23:55] Speaker A: I was so Krista was on point for them.
[00:23:57] Speaker C: It was Krista.
[00:23:58] Speaker A: Okay.
And now she runs Regency's office locally.
[00:24:02] Speaker C: Yeah, but I was so green and so young and she could have eaten. Eaten me for lunch, but she didn't.
[00:24:11] Speaker A: Well, Basuto carries weight. You know, that's a good card to carry obviously in our market. So.
Yeah. Well that's great. So that was your first job and then was how. When did Chibi Cheese, the Chibi Cheese Lake project come up, come in?
[00:24:25] Speaker C: That's a good question. We started as consultants to David Smith's predecessor when they were going through a rezoning and master planning process.
And we were in a consultant fashion probably starting, I would say 2011, probably.
[00:24:40] Speaker A: Gavin Farr or Gavin's successor, who I can't remember now is anyway the Chevy Chase Land Company.
[00:24:46] Speaker C: Right, Correct. And so. And we were an advisor or consultant, hired gun through a lot of that pre entitlements work, the master planning process at Montgomery County Council. Well, first the planning board and then Councillor and then once that master plan got adopted and it became a real development opportunity.
[00:25:06] Speaker A: That was Lenozen Block originally doing the Marco, wasn't it?
[00:25:10] Speaker C: That's a good question. Well, Steve Robbins was our land use counsel and. No, it was always Steve Robbins with Mitty Figueretto at the land company, both under David Smith and then Tom Rednell and I think Mitty, I think he was pretty consistently Steve.
[00:25:27] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:25:28] Speaker C: But I'm.
[00:25:29] Speaker A: Well, at one time Steve was with Lenos.
[00:25:31] Speaker C: Oh, he went over to maybe that.
[00:25:33] Speaker A: Or Charlie and Brewer. And yeah, there was a lot of shuffling of attorneys at that time roughly or you know, over the years. So yeah, it's quite a. I remember sitting with. With David when he was first looking at it and I was with, you know, Scott Decayne and Paul Larner and we were going to consult them at the time. This was before Busuto came into the picture, even so.
And the county just didn't quite see the vision there. So it needed the Visuto group to come up with the ideas, which was a good thing.
[00:26:08] Speaker C: Well, and I think what a generational opportunity to really take the long view, the doggedness.
I mean, we started working on that with Mitty and with David Smith and from a consulting stand, I mean seven or eight years before a shovel was Put in the ground. I mean this is not a merchant bill. A quick hit.
And so I do think that that really set the course of the partnership. That there's going to be some tough decisions and things are going to change. But there has to be that.
[00:26:40] Speaker A: Have you toured the property since you.
[00:26:42] Speaker C: Of course I've mystery shopped. I've toured as a official guest. Oh yeah, you got to go see, you can't be good at the front end until you know the back end.
[00:26:51] Speaker A: Right.
[00:26:52] Speaker C: So seeing, seeing it in three dimensions.
[00:26:56] Speaker A: You walk around with Toby here and.
[00:26:57] Speaker C: That'S not my success. The developers that came after me, you know, really, really put the patina that is on that project. The architecture. When I, when I left Busuto was current. A little bit short of the groundbreaking for the first building.
[00:27:13] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:27:13] Speaker C: Which is about six months after I left.
[00:27:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:17] Speaker C: We'd gotten through construction documents and capitalization.
[00:27:23] Speaker A: So along came Rockefeller. So what drew you to make the change at the time and what I. I mean you had a. You were really positioned. Well, you probably could have been president of the development company at Pseudo if you'd stuck around a while.
[00:27:37] Speaker C: Oh, I don't know. I don't know. Hanahan. I wouldn't want to meet Hanahan in dark alley.
Salt of the earth. He's such a good guy. Well, there was a. When Rockefeller came and knock in, I said no, I don't know half a dozen times. I mean I was so happy. I mean look at Busuto.
I have had extraordinary colleagues, really glamorous projects and in addition to, you know, things like Chevy Chase Lake, I was working on our mixed income portfolio. So some of our LI tech deals at Busuto and just things I really believed in and with extraordinary people. And so I was not looking to leave and kind of just short circuit after saying no a number of times, it became clear that the opportunity to really start a business and all product types, trophy office workforce, housing, condo, which we have not done here. Industrial, but industrial, the world is your oyster.
And really start the team from scratch, start the pipeline from scratch and build and run a business was an incomparable opportunity.
[00:28:44] Speaker A: So especially with a name like Rockefeller.
[00:28:47] Speaker C: Correct.
[00:28:47] Speaker A: Certainly helps.
[00:28:49] Speaker C: So it was unexpected. It was unexpected, but no looking back.
[00:28:55] Speaker A: Did you know Dan Moore, the president before then?
[00:28:57] Speaker C: I did not. I did not. And he actually lived here at the time, but I had not met him until.
[00:29:05] Speaker A: So they just came after you?
You weren't looking, you weren't thinking about it or anything like that. They just approached you as a headhunter kind of thing. Yeah. Okay, interesting.
[00:29:17] Speaker C: I actually. I do know actually how they got to me. And it was from a. Like everything else, it was from a dear friend, colleague.
So that's how my name got thrown in the ring. Yeah, you should talk to so and so kind of thing.
[00:29:33] Speaker A: Yeah, sure.
[00:29:33] Speaker C: But that's. That's how the world works.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: Of course. Naturally.
So when you came, what was your initial thought? I mean, was it, okay, I've got a de novo situation. It's a brand new office, a new setup.
Did you have guidelines as to what you were gonna do when you first came, or did you have in your mind, okay, this is where I'm going right away?
[00:29:55] Speaker C: I would say a little bit of both, I do think.
We had one existing project that was just starting construction. So it was sourced, but it was a very large scale project. It's Burrow Tower with Ronan. It was just starting. They were starting the hole. They weren't in the bottom of the hole yet, but. So from a development and an execution standpoint, there was a lot of wood to chop left.
[00:30:19] Speaker A: I mean, did you know the guys? Did you know the guys before?
[00:30:22] Speaker C: I did not.
[00:30:23] Speaker A: You didn't?
[00:30:24] Speaker C: I did not.
[00:30:25] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:30:26] Speaker C: So there were, you know, to enter.
We had no people, though. I was the only person, only employee in Rock's D.C. office. So I had one person, one project that was just starting. But so there were some immediate execution priorities and needs given the scale of that investment, alongside building out a business, you know, hiring people, sourcing projects, standing up a multifamily business and industrial business.
[00:30:55] Speaker A: So who made the deal with David and Bruce?
[00:30:59] Speaker C: The very first deal was Dan Moore.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: Dan made that deal. Okay, did they approach Dan or did he approach them?
[00:31:06] Speaker C: That's a good question.
Does it matter? I don't know the answer.
[00:31:09] Speaker A: Just curious. Well, you don't have to know. I just was curious because, you know, were they out deal?
[00:31:16] Speaker C: Yeah. I don't know formally. Like, I don't know if it's a brokered. I don't. I'd have to jog my memory. You're testing me. Eight years ago, and actually, I guess that Project Inception would have been nine years ago.
[00:31:32] Speaker A: A little backstory on that deal, listeners.
I interviewed Jeff Sell probably a month or so ago, and he was a podcast guest. Jeff's company introduced that transaction to Meridian at the time they were hired by SAIC J.M. zell & Associates to assemble that whole site and put everything together.
It was quite a complex project deal.
I actually had an opportunity to present it to a couple other people, but Just sorting it out was very challenging because you were.
It was a corporate situation and they were trying to fit what they wanted on it. And there was a hotel that had to be torn down and a few. Bunch of things that were. It was just quite an interesting project. But the borough has really turned out to be a spectacular project. I think really pretty well done.
[00:32:29] Speaker C: I do think you will never get the money unless you have a vision.
And there was vision.
[00:32:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yeah. I'm guessing that Meridian brought most of that vision there, but I don't know the whole backstory there. So maybe you can share that or if you know.
[00:32:47] Speaker C: No, I think. I think you're right. I think the fortitude, especially through what was a very difficult planning process, the thing I give Gary, David and the Meridian guys a ton of credit for is that to hit the cycle exactly right for various product types is just so hard. And that commitment that we are going to deliver critical mass and the ancillary infrastructure with phase one at one time was not for the faint of heart. And I give, I think from a visioning standpoint to create a place on day one with of course later phasing and, you know, options possible. But I think that is really an impressive feat.
[00:33:37] Speaker A: It's quite an urban village. It's more than just an office building and retailers. At least three apartment projects.
[00:33:44] Speaker C: And that's what I mean to deliver the, you know, bull. Get a blank on marketing names. But both the lower rise is it Bolden and Rise, I think are the marketing along with the high rise, along with the condo, along with retail, along with the theater building, the anchor Whole Foods. I mean the scale of that all delivering, you know, more or less concurrently in a phase one to establish a place is impressive.
[00:34:13] Speaker A: Quite. I would say. You know, I've been tracking David Cheet's delivery of his development business since he worked at Peterson and I would say that's probably the best.
That's his best project ever, I'm guessing. I don't know if he would say that, but I'd be gonna ask him someday when he wants to join me on the podcast. But I'm gonna say that right now.
[00:34:35] Speaker C: Are you allowed to have favorite children? Did you get that? That will show your interviewing skill, John.
Get him to concede someday. The apple in my eye.
I just actually told my nine year old, you know, you're each my favorite in your own way. So maybe that maybe you'll get something a little more diplomatic.
[00:34:56] Speaker A: When you have children, it's always hard to be discreet. So you did that deal with them. And then, of course, we're now sitting in another investment that you did with them. So talk about this 1901 Ella.
[00:35:10] Speaker C: Well, look, you know, when you're building a business, I think repeat business is a very good look.
[00:35:15] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:35:16] Speaker C: And this was one of those. I mean, it was anchored. We had an anchor pre lease, which mitigated a lot of the risk.
Rockefeller has a niche in these kind of muscular redevelopments. We did it in New York, too, at 1271, where we're doing it at 600 Fifth street here in D.C. but the.
From a design and construction, from a technical standpoint, what's required to really gut renovate. So all we're reusing is the concrete foundations plan, concrete structure. And in this case, unlike 1271 in New York, we popped the top and added some floors. And so it is a construction type that we had expertise and were very familiar with. We had successfully.
We weren't stabilized yet on Borough Tower, but were, you know, successfully on our way there. And so this project ended up delivering. Katie Lenz in our office pulled our TCO with her counterparts at Meridian. March of 2020, I think it was March 17th. Wow.
[00:36:24] Speaker A: Right before the pandemic.
[00:36:25] Speaker C: That's correct. So we moved in this suite that you're sitting in now, our office space here, I want to say, in September, October of 2020.
So, you know, again, timing, timing.
[00:36:38] Speaker A: So was that a gut rehab here?
[00:36:40] Speaker C: Yeah, everything.
The only thing that remained were concrete slabs.
[00:36:44] Speaker A: Right.
[00:36:44] Speaker C: And then the foundation's plan. And the reason this worked is we reused the garage infrastructure.
From a contingency planning standpoint, we had some cushion, but we ended up only drilling, you know, one additional micropile in the garage kind of thing. Like many of our, you know, 1970s eras, I would say through the late 70s here, our concrete structure with spiral rebar is pretty, pretty tough stuff. And the existing foundations can support the additional floor or two on top pretty consistently through DC 605th, actually even more so. That was built as a fortress by Metro Metro. One of the great stories about that building is as we were through due diligence, Metros as built for that project were actually dated before construction started in one of these great bureaucratic moments, right, where clearly somebody in Metro just, you know, stamped as built and put them in a drawer.
[00:37:45] Speaker A: Was that a brutalist building?
[00:37:47] Speaker C: It was.
And with, you know, the wonderful. You only see it in D.C.
these very chunky concrete aggregate affixed in panels. You actually see it in the Isaac Albane portfolio, too.
[00:38:01] Speaker A: Was that a Blake building? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I financed four of them, so. Three of them. So I know the Blake well.
[00:38:09] Speaker C: It was exciting. I had never. We did as always through diligence. We do some core drillings and I had never actually hit spiral rebar before.
That was exciting.
[00:38:19] Speaker A: So this building I have some history with.
[00:38:22] Speaker C: I know you do with the Verizon store on the corner.
[00:38:24] Speaker A: Well, actually I financed it. I did a refi for the Brown family on this property.
[00:38:29] Speaker C: John, is there any building that you haven't touched?
[00:38:32] Speaker A: Oh, there are plenty.
[00:38:33] Speaker C: I don't know.
Your reach is so extraordinary.
[00:38:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I remember first in the 1980s I inspected this property and there was a tenant here. It was the American Railroad Association. I think they were the main. One of the largest tenants here as I recall attracts. And then Staples. It was originally Office Depot.
[00:38:53] Speaker C: Oh, I said Verizon, I meant Staples.
[00:38:55] Speaker A: It was, yeah, actually Office Depot was there before Staples was there. So I don't know why they that happened. But so that ground floor, it was kind of bizarre to have that kind of space in a downtown office building.
So I don't know why that was built that way. I don't think it was. Was built for them originally, but so I think this building is. Was built originally built in the late 70s if I'm not mistaken, or maybe even mid 70s originally. I don't know if you know the original history of the building or not, but you obviously improved it a lot. So I read that this is a well building. So can you explain what a well building is a little bit and what that means?
[00:39:35] Speaker C: Sure. Well the reason. So. So this is the first building in D.C.
certified as Wellborn Shell and well, there are a lot of environmental or green rating agencies out there. Usgbc, leed.
Well, the reason we really believe and like. Well is that it's very much focused on energy efficiency as well as the tenants experience. So for example, I think a lot of folks are familiar with LEED as a baseline and how you design to that checklist and you can get points for transit adjacency or other elements that may or may not impact a tenant's day to day experience of the building. Whereas. Well, very much is focused on things like acoustical comfort or thermal comfort or energy efficiency. And so what's interesting is that both this building and 605th, which will also be well certified, were obviously designed and incorporated these elements well before pandemic era design. You know, we like DOAS systems with 100% dedicated outside air and these sorts of building specifications which seem obvious in a post Pandemic world. But at the time, we're very much at the vanguard of.
It's something that we believed in. We, you know, I do think that while is very much also focused on not just environmental sustainability, but economic sustainability, so, you know, things that will pay dividends over the long haul in the life cycle of the building as it gets used. So, like, the same kind of analysis, are we going to replace our garage, all of our garage fixtures with led? And you look at the, you know, horizon of the investment and then, you know, time to pay back and all that kind of stuff and, well, is very much economically sustainable for landlords and building owners to the benefit of our tenants. So it's something that I believe in.
[00:41:35] Speaker A: So is it a significant cost to do that, or is it over and above a traditional building?
[00:41:43] Speaker C: So as the first building certified in dc, there was a bit of a learning curve. And so I think as the program gets more entrenched, I think there'll be opportunities to, you know, two birds, one stone with certain elements you're doing for a LEED certification as well, or something else. And so, you know, what's the expression?
Pioneers get slaughtered and settlers get paid. We certainly did not get slaughtered. It was. We delivered in budget and on schedule. But I do think moving forward, we learned a lot of lessons here. And so the efficiency of the program at 605th, for example, will be, I think we'll benefit from.
[00:42:24] Speaker A: I just interviewed Kathryn Buell, and she just set up her own wellness real estate company. So for listeners you want to listen about wellness, she's the expert now on that.
[00:42:37] Speaker C: So have you interviewed Lauren Jesnicki for your podcast?
[00:42:40] Speaker A: No, not Lauren. Well, Lauren's on my board, actually.
[00:42:44] Speaker C: So is that a conflict?
[00:42:45] Speaker A: Actually, she's now about to resign from the board, actually. But I did have her on a panel earlier with actually with Deborah Ratner Salzburg and Saadvi Sub Romanian on a women's panel that I had, I don't know, four or five years ago, something like that. So I've interviewed her before.
[00:43:06] Speaker C: So the wellness. I know that's not what she's doing those five minutes.
[00:43:10] Speaker A: Well, she still has her One Circle company that she does that stuff. That's her thing. So anyway, so the big other big one you mentioned, and you brought it up that you won over on 5th, the former. So how did that deal come about and did Doug find that deal first? I mean, you're partners with Doug Furstenberg.
[00:43:31] Speaker C: And Stonebridge, So I had known Doug from my busito days. The answer Is no. So when I. Actually, it goes back to one of your earlier questions. When I started at Rock, I had a no RFP role because as you're building a business, it's, you know, is the juice worth the squeeze? It's a very speculative long haul.
[00:43:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:50] Speaker C: And when Metro came back out, folks in the market will remember that the site had been on the market. They came back out and they had sort of solved some of the quirks. There was like a zoning administrator, they'd gotten through some historic questions. They had done a lot of work kind of preparing this for redevelopment that the market benefited from. And when I had walked the site, and as a native Washingtonian, I mean, it doesn't get much better than that. I mean, you know, a full city block with neighbors like Capital One and National Building Museum, the Pension Building right at the knuckle between established Washington and Judiciary Square and the urbanity of gallery.
[00:44:31] Speaker A: Places, you can build a monumental building.
[00:44:33] Speaker C: It was one of these things that I kind of put aside this no RFP role. And very quickly, even though Rockefeller absolutely had the development expertise and the balance sheet, one of the things that over the years Doug had taught me was how to win. And Doug and his partners at Stonebridge have built just such an extraordinary niche in public private partnerships and in really listening to public or quasi public entities and figuring out how to mitigate risk and maximize value for them. So I called Doug and he laughed and he said, I am.
No way.
I known him long enough at the way to his heart. We had bacon pancakes at the original pancake house in Bethesda with bacon in the pancakes.
And the rest is history. And so, I mean, from day one, we were teamed up and partners on this deal. And so through, I don't know, it was probably a year, year and a half of Chase and negotiations, we executed the joint development agreement, I want to say 2019, and then our full financial close and construction start was in 2023.
[00:45:46] Speaker A: So who. Who did you compete with for that project?
[00:45:49] Speaker C: Well, at the time, well, and it's actually interesting, there were 12 finalists, then got narrowed to six, then got narrowed to three.
Again, one of the reasons why I had had a new RFP role. But, you know, a lot of the usual suspects in D.C. this was before.
D.C. has had a very interesting history. And this, of course, was an RFP issued by Metro and not by Demped, meaning no first source. You know, there were. There were not all of the procurement requirements that a demped RFP has. And so, so there were a lot of Bidders. A lot of the, I think public policy priorities that folks shy away from in current demped RFPs were not at issue here. So you had all the big boys bidding on this one.
[00:46:37] Speaker A: So I mean, is Boston Properties one of the finalists? I mean.
[00:46:42] Speaker C: Well, I know who I saw in that last round of interviews because they back to backed us.
No, but it was a highly competitive process.
[00:46:50] Speaker A: I can imagine, I can imagine, yeah.
[00:46:54] Speaker C: Because I do. And actually what was interesting, what I will share on this one, was our original execution plan was a demolition and then a rebuild for high end residential, multifamily rental, but with a hotel. And we were going to do branded residences. And then through a due diligence process, it became very clear that, look, you can engineer anything, but to minimize risk and maximize value for wmata, given the infrastructure that is on site, something that could reuse the existing foundations plan. And that is why we pivoted to trophy office. And had we not partnered with Stonebridge, I think that pivot would not have been possible.
And for some of the competing finalists, I think similarly.
[00:47:41] Speaker A: So it's supposed to be more of a mixed use development as opposed to an office building.
[00:47:45] Speaker C: Correct, Correct.
[00:47:46] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:47:47] Speaker C: And again, anything can be engineered, but I mean, the Red Line tunnel runs right underneath this site. Actually, two interesting facts people may not know about.600 Fifth, it was the site of DC's first synagogue.
And then for Metro, when Metro was built, it was actually where our money, where the money vault for the whole system was located. So a very secure portion of the below grid infrastructure.
When the train came through at the end of every night to deliver all the coinage it had collected from the system, all of the money would be unloaded there on site.
So there's a lot of infrastructure below grade.
[00:48:22] Speaker A: Why there?
[00:48:23] Speaker C: It's not your Metro center, but it was Metro's headquarter building and it was very secure.
[00:48:27] Speaker A: Oh, well, let me.
[00:48:28] Speaker C: It was secure. So it's where Metro police were headquartered.
[00:48:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess that makes sense.
[00:48:34] Speaker C: So as you know, for our investors, like this spirit and history of being a money train hopefully will continue.
We shall see.
[00:48:46] Speaker A: Where did Metro end up going?
[00:48:47] Speaker C: I've forgotten exactly three sites, one in dc, one in.
[00:48:51] Speaker A: Oh, they divided up.
[00:48:52] Speaker C: They divided. So New Carrollton Landfont. Landfont is the main. Like if I have a meeting with the real estate division at Metro is at Leon.
[00:49:04] Speaker A: So let's pivot to Outside of Washington D.C. other developments and other projects. So I understand you got a massive project down in Tidewater. Talk about that a little bit So.
[00:49:15] Speaker C: I don't know a couple years ago and it became very clear that it was time for me to become a reformed urbanite and stand up an industrial business.
We started sourcing projects. 95 corridor as one would expect 81 corridor. We have a big deal in Carlisle too that's of equal scale. And then at the port of Virginia the Madden companies. Have you interviewed.
[00:49:40] Speaker A: No, I haven't interviewed Mark.
Their family grew up in our neighborhood. Actually their father they grew up in our backyard. So I haven't yet. It's interesting because Lauren just Nikki, our friend is married to a former Matten employee.
[00:49:57] Speaker C: That's right. That makes sense.
[00:49:59] Speaker A: And I've gone up there. I know that the federal capital guys had a partnership up there and Frederick on a build to suit for the National Cancer Institute with them. So I was up to see that with Esko Korhonen then.
So I've had interaction there. And then one of my former and my analyst at Leg Mason has been their finance guy there for probably 25 years. Dan Milligan. So I don't know if you've met Dan yet. Yeah, Dan's great.
Yeah he worked for me for four or five years. Oh yeah, yeah, yep. So I have a few connections there. I would like to eventually I probably should as their reach is now beyond you know northern Montgomery and Frederick County. So yeah that probably makes sense.
[00:50:45] Speaker C: And you know as we start it's sort of how the data driven approach that is gospel to us. We do a lot of market analysis, partner analysis But Rockefeller has had a port centric strategy for about 20 years now. Our head of development nationally also runs our foreign trade zone business Brandy hand back and locating distribution and logistics facility a scale proximate to ports that started in New York.
Where did it start? I don't know the answer to exactly where our first one would have been 20 years ago. But we are active inland empire and of course Long Beach, California.
[00:51:25] Speaker A: Right.
[00:51:26] Speaker C: New Jersey, New York, Savannah. I mean these all track with our regional offices and every single one of our the south six of us nationally have an industrial business as well. And to the extent possible that's port centric development is sort of a superpower of ours and that's really thanks to Brandy's leadership and vision. And when you look at the port of Virginia specifically and now this is post 2020 with a lot of the supply chain constraints issues that we were seeing in some of our aging port infrastructure and the Commonwealth of Virginia and $16 billion of investment and you're seeing it. It's now the third most efficient port in our country and that's by TEU volume the amount of infrastructure improvements that were directed both from a state and from a federal level to dredge. So we're now the deepest channel port on the east coast.
We're wide enough for two way traffic. You have all the military infrastructure.
[00:52:33] Speaker A: That's what I was going to say. That's where the federal government investment is.
[00:52:37] Speaker C: Well and so when you're looking at the Navy's second largest facility we're data nerds. Right. And so when you're looking at things like investment dollars, demographics. Governor Youngkin had established tax incentives for veterans to stay in state.
The local labor forces just extraordinary in.
[00:52:58] Speaker A: Suffolk, Virginia and the friendliest business state in the country.
[00:53:01] Speaker C: And you know with all the reshoring trends and yeah CNBC is number one state to do business in. And so it was why this sub market was very quickly a target for us in the mid Atlantic. If you look at sort of where we're going to build industrial that was a natural fit. And the Maddens were in the market. They had site control. They had not yet taken down the land position but they site control and were out in the market from an execution and a capitalization standpoint. So that partnership, you know I do think, you know I think at Rockefeller one of the things I'm very grateful for is that we have the flexibility both to do things on our own as the sole GP development muscle.
[00:53:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:45] Speaker C: And we can do certain things on balance sheet but we can also partner up and especially in I would say this region as well as New York. Our projects are so large that there really is a value add, the sum is greater than its parts. For whether it's you know the Rockefeller Madden Partnership, the Rockefeller Stonebridge Partnership, you know. Correct. These are, we're not duplicating efforts. We have very explicit responsibility matrices. We work well, we're very embedded.
I think the Stonebridge Partnership, I mean we had just such a long track record of working together from the Zodo days that it was a little bit seamless. You didn't have growing pains. There was no kid gloves in terms of delivering messages.
So that was sort of hit the ground running in a very productive way.
And the Maddens are just great people and same thing, very integrated teams that I'm not sure if some of our consultants would necessarily know like which of our project managers work at Rockefeller versus Madden. It's a very integrated team. So that takes work. I mean that kind of spirit of partnership, that dedication to partnership. I mean that is a day to day execution priority. That does not happen overnight. That you know that.
And it's hard. Not every institution can do that.
[00:55:13] Speaker A: So looking forward, how do you want to grow? Do you want to look at more partnerships or do you want to now kind of stand on your own for.
[00:55:20] Speaker C: Deals at this point it's a very good question. You know I think the answer, I'm not personally ideological. I do think right now we Boast It's a $2.3 billion pipeline of all real deals. This is includes three trophy office, three industrial, two multifamily.
And the scale of that for the diversity to build in would be some smaller quicker hits. So that's not a referendum on where we are macro environment. But in order we have great product type diversity. But I think we are such a high regulatory barrier to entry kind of market is that finding some maybe smaller defined as $150 million or less quicker famous plus words deals would be.
[00:56:13] Speaker A: You're one of the few companies that call that a small deal 150 or less.
[00:56:18] Speaker C: You know, it's about, it's about diversity for the team. Right. In training too, like our folks, there's I think every developer has that age old. You know, how many projects can a development manager, director of development handle at any given time? And I think the answer depends on.
You got to have different projects at different stages, right. Like if you have three projects that are going through night hearings and public hearings through entitlements. I mean that's not, that's not reasonable. But, but so I think that diversity in project timeline and scale is important.
[00:56:49] Speaker A: So you develop projects. What about owning an asset management of projects? Do you continue on or do you look for an exit strategy? What's the overall investment strategy with development?
[00:57:03] Speaker C: So our goal and we are underwriting things as design, develop, stabilize, sell. And so the great flexibility we have at Rock is that we don't necessarily have a gun to our head.
And so we can always make the right decision for the real estate now in our market because things take so long, that tends to be a longer term hold than when you would call something else merchant build and you know, a Houston with no zoning. Right.
[00:57:30] Speaker A: It's quicker, a quicker market.
[00:57:32] Speaker C: But our business plan in our development business is not to own in perpetuity. It is not a long term operations. My job is to take that development risk and post those development returns for our investors. And so you know our core holdings division, which is our fortress assets in New York. Those are the assets that we, you know, we maintain our own property management, engineering and those are our fortress assets.
So all of our regions are part of our development business, which is a develop, stabilize and sell model.
[00:58:09] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:58:10] Speaker C: However long that may take for your region.
[00:58:13] Speaker A: Got it.
[00:58:14] Speaker C: I wish we were quicker.
[00:58:16] Speaker A: Yeah, well then, I mean that's how you manage your staff because you're not, if you don't have asset management, you don't have property management, you don't have all those. And that's a, that's a big load.
[00:58:28] Speaker C: And having, I mean, I do, you're right. Our office here, we're all proper developers. It's development and construction. We do have the benefit though of those professionals in New York and in our core holdings. So if you are making a front end structuring, design or development decision that you know, you have that expertise in house that can, that can play, which is fantastic.
[00:58:53] Speaker A: Well, I mean when you're developing, you got to know how something's going to operate, how it's going to function long term and then how, what's the market to sell the asset down the road. So now I don't know if you obviously work with brokers and outside property managers, et cetera, et cetera, I assume to get consulting of you advice from that.
So looking forward in this region, what are you, what are you looking for at this point? We didn't get to the point where, you know, what do you want to do? I mean I, I know you have.
[00:59:25] Speaker C: A multifamily bent, so it remains multifamily and industrial. And I think I do see some great opportunity for office in the dmv. I think because we have such three large projects I'd like to see, you know, maybe we'll recycle capital or exit one or more of those. But I do think there is specific to this region a big office opportunity when you're looking at the demand drivers and the dearth of trophy space and that kind of stuff.
[01:00:00] Speaker A: So, so basically class BC that you would either raise or completely gut rehab similar to the building we're sitting in type of situation.
So you want a prime location for that? I assume so you want, you can be in the CBD or Tysons or Arlington or someplace like that. Yeah.
So you think office is the best opportunity right now in this region?
[01:00:26] Speaker C: I think for the DMV proper. I think trophy office workforce, housing market rate. I'm not talking about subsidized but stick built structured.
Parking in the podium or slab on grade, but no underground and then ancillary data center.
Now that's wearing my native Washingtonian hat. That's not necessarily an answer for roc.
Our pursuit and acquisition priorities remain in multifamily and industrial, which historically has been our fastball.
[01:01:01] Speaker A: So I noticed recently that Heinz has gotten into the land development business which is kind of interesting for them and.
[01:01:07] Speaker C: Now life sciences I hear.
[01:01:08] Speaker A: Yeah, so it's. I look at your company and them similar in some respects because the way you look at things and the way they're capitalized and the way they, you know, have that kind of family orientation in business.
Even though Rockefeller was sold to the Japanese, to the Mitsubishi, but it still has the Rockefeller name and the presence from that whole thing.
So culturally, what do you like about being part of the Rockefeller family and the whole situation? What is it?
[01:01:41] Speaker C: Oh, it's just so special about it. The world's greatest colleagues.
Compassionate, empathetic, kind. Impressive as hell.
[01:01:51] Speaker A: Do you think Dan is the one that set that culture into motion or did that evolve before he got here?
[01:01:57] Speaker C: No, I do think he spent a huge amount of his time and this really is his fingerprint.
Look, a 90 year old plus company has a lot of twists, turns in history and legacy and the quality of people that we have across the organization nationally is, is incomparable.
We don't have a bad apple in the bunch.
[01:02:22] Speaker A: That's great.
[01:02:23] Speaker C: It's a really, it's a good place to work.
[01:02:26] Speaker A: So how do you compare it to Busuto in culture? Because they have a pretty good culture there too, so.
[01:02:32] Speaker C: Well, I know it was interesting. I was actually just talking to somebody about this. You know, I think when I was very early in my career it was probably more luck than diligence. But these days, ending up and working with just, just people you want to get up out of bed every day and fight for. I think it's a diligence. Right. And I think they share a lot of the same commitment to excellence underpinning belief in the added value of good design. And life is too short to work with assholes. Can I say that? I don't know.
[01:03:06] Speaker A: You can say that we've all worked.
[01:03:08] Speaker C: With difficult people and, and every organization has them.
But you know, there's just no malicious intent. Right. There's no palace politics. I mean, I just, I don't know. I mean maybe there are and I just.
I don't know. It's not.
And I do think that's a shared kind of. To your. Obviously very different.
The two organizations are very different in terms of product type and business lines and all that good stuff. But at the end of the day, very just great people.
[01:03:43] Speaker A: So I interviewed Owen Billman, who was the president of Blake recently and he's the. And I don't know if you are also on the Golden Triangle bid on the board there, but he is head of that. So we talked about the Golden Triangle and what the future is for this neighborhood. But since this building is probably right in the center of the cbd, what's your belief of the long term view here in this, in the Golden Triangle?
[01:04:11] Speaker C: I would say both for Golden Triangle and downtown. And I think as a native Washingtonian, I firmly believe in the resilience of our city.
I do. I am optimistic that our it is kind of our blue cities moments in that a lot of the pandemic era demographic and jobs trends that we saw, there is a pendulum swing.
I think that our city from a regulatory standpoint has a lot of wood to chop. And we're working on this every day. And this is my pro bono life. But to ensure that we are a market that is institutional capital and investors can make long term decisions here, you know, whether that's Red Hill act and TOPA modernization or certain investments for economic development initiatives that need to be made. But long term, I am very bullish. You know, when you look at the data driving a lot of the Doge, you know, there are obviously winners and losers. There are obviously very significant and difficult impacts for certain segments of our industry.
And I think how that market resets is going to be very important. But over the long haul, I mean, I do firmly believe that we are the greatest city in the greatest country in the entire world.
And I think that affirmative reason why companies will locate here and choose to be here, why young people want to live here, I think our bones, our infrastructure, our fundamental competitive advantage remains very strong.
And you know, look, we're in a very mercurial and volatile world irrespective of who's in 1600 Pennsylvania. And and you know, I just, I think that we have enough long term kind of vision makers and philanthropic interests that I am a firm believer now that does not apologize or excuse the very real wood to chop we have to do on a day to day basis in this five minutes with our city council, with town gown relationships, with, you know, the feds. I think there's a lot of wood to chop.
[01:06:40] Speaker A: Well, it seems to me, and I've been talking about this for quite some time, Southwest Washington needs to be redeveloped.
[01:06:49] Speaker C: And you mean Landfont Plaza and the Mall.
[01:06:51] Speaker A: Everything's south of Independence Avenue. And they're already starting to put RFPs out for that. And I also read that NCPC wants the Smithsonian to take at least one or two of those buildings too.
But that doesn't do much for economic development in the city in my opinion. So my sense is you need some more mixed use development down that way. The Wharf was just recapitalized and sold.
I had a meeting with Ray Ritchie and he told me that, you know, it was more of a forced, forced situation there where Monty Hoffman was asked to kind of step away.
So, you know, I mean, he may not say that, but so it's interesting to hear that. And you know, is it feasible to build something of that magnitude going forward? And then just right after that I read that the Washington commanders are going to build a stadium and now it's hopefully, knock on wood, approved by city council.
And Andy Van Horne is going to captain a $3.8 billion redevelopment of around, you know, the stadium there and do an RFP there, which might be an interesting play for Rockefeller possibly to do that project. So that could, that could be some interesting new business for you. Just, I'll just throw that out there.
[01:08:12] Speaker C: No small plans?
No small plans, no. I am a student of bringing sports teams to cities and you know, I just, I mean we see saw with the capitals, I mean there's just a, you know, bringing their commanders home is a real win for our city for sure.
[01:08:37] Speaker A: It's big and that's a huge project that I don't know how many thousand apartment units was in the plan and.
[01:08:44] Speaker C: 6,500 for the commercial development rights.
[01:08:47] Speaker A: Yeah, so he has to get an architect first and he's got three or four candidates for that. And then once that happens, I would think that not far behind, that's the RFP for development.
And I would think that for that scale project you probably have two, maybe even three developers on that project would be my guess.
[01:09:07] Speaker C: But yeah, and I do think the, you know, both the anchor neighborhood building that you see at the Yards, that you see at Union Market, that you see see at the Wharf, RFK is commensurate with that scale and opportunity. And I think will Rockefeller play, you know, in large scale urban development, that has been our, you know, such a large part of our brand since the development of Rockefeller center versus more tactical infill opportunities, you know, I think remains to be seen. And again, the real gift is not being ideological. Right. And having flexibility to source and pursue the most compelling opportunities in my region is what gets me out of bed every morning. But No, I am rooting for, I mean, you gotta root for our home teams, but I am rooting for an affirmative vote at council. I'm not quite sure if it'll be before or after recess. You may know better than me, but got them home.
But there is a, from a legislative agenda perspective, there is a lot on the council's agenda that is just critical to the resilience of our downtown and our, you know, the district as a whole, both with the rental act, the RFK stadium deal. It's a tough budget year. They're going through budget hearings right now. We'll see.
[01:10:37] Speaker A: So I know, I'm pretty sure you're an advocate of place making.
So what, what do you think about place making in downtown Washington right now and what needs to be done?
[01:10:47] Speaker C: That's a good question. I mean, I think we have sort of a group that is working on what I'll call low hanging fruit. Right.
Kind of day, day zero stuff that that could be done. I mean, I think, you know, it's at the nexus of D dot and you know, whether, and you look at the bids. I mean, the work that our bids do is extraordinary in terms of maintenance and events and historically they're not as much today safety, but that sort of lipstick and judging up of our pedestrian level experience of our streets and of our city is just incomparable. And the work the bids do is just irreplaceable.
But I do think whether it's reclaiming some of our right of way for vehicular traffic, especially with the return to work mandate, I think is very important to alleviate some of the choke points that we're seeing. On Connecticut Avenue, for example, there are some extraordinary.
You actually can look right outside the window here and see the public art that the Golden Triangle bid has put up and down 19th Street. It's not new, but they recently resealed the woodwork on these sculptural pieces. And so, I mean, this matters. This creates liveliness and a sense of place and a memory that I think is really important.
[01:12:12] Speaker A: From 2015, well, 2013 through 2017, I was office to 2101 L Street, which is two blocks away from here.
And in that era before the pandemic, food trucks would line from all the way from 21st all the way down to practically to 17th street on L Street.
And I haven't seen those since the pandemic. Do you think they're going to come back?
[01:12:40] Speaker C: Well, we have, we have. I have mixed feelings about food trucks. On a personal note, I absolutely adore food truck food. There's, you know, no food truck is not. Every food truck is created equal. There's a big difference between, you know, soft serve ice cream and pretzels and hot dogs in the mall versus some of our ethnic food, et cetera. And you know, we have a lottery system right now for like Farragut, for example. And so I am no expert. Our industry is of two minds on this topic. There are. I have colleagues and competitors who firmly believe that every food truck is a lost restaurant. Sticks and bricks restaurant. So, you know, I do think the lottery system is very difficult to ensuring.
[01:13:25] Speaker A: Got it.
[01:13:26] Speaker C: The quality and execution that I think you're remembering.
[01:13:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, there were.
The restaurants were doing well too. It wasn't as if they were taking much business away at that time. I mean, of course, the streets were three times more crowded than they are today too. So I guess the pandemic just basically socially changed things indefinitely. At least, for. At least in my career.
[01:13:48] Speaker C: The city feels good. Like, you go, our residential neighborhoods feel great during the day.
[01:13:52] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:13:53] Speaker C: 19Th Street's a good example. You know, it's the widest sidewalks of any street in the cbd. And any given day on the lunch hour, I mean, it feels like the, you know, it's basketball pre pandemic.
[01:14:03] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:14:03] Speaker C: But there are, there are gaps.
Right. And so I do think we got a lot of work to do.
You know, two blocks off some of our epicenters today.
[01:14:13] Speaker A: Why can't they make Farragut Square? Like, you know, what's the big, big park in New York on 40th Street?
[01:14:19] Speaker C: Bryant Park.
[01:14:20] Speaker A: Like Bryant park doing something like that there.
[01:14:22] Speaker C: You know, they have movable chairs in Farragut now. I sort of felt like Franklin Square.
[01:14:28] Speaker A: They'Ve done a nice job.
[01:14:28] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:14:29] Speaker A: But not, not this one as much.
It just seems to me that there's opportunity there and that's investment by, I think, the bid as well as, you.
[01:14:41] Speaker C: Know, on our city. Right. With annual appropriations.
[01:14:45] Speaker A: Yeah. So let's get into giving back a little bit. As we talked about, I know you're very active with ULI and historically have been. What other things Are you a member of the Federal City Council?
[01:14:56] Speaker C: I currently chair our developer roundtable.
[01:14:59] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:15:00] Speaker C: In D.C. and so as such, I attend our business coordinating group and FCC meetings as the month may demand.
I'm answering this question first. Industry related or the economic club? I mean, I, you know, I, it keeps one. I, you know, especially across industry and across sector. Right. We can't take a myopic view and only Hang out with our friends and competitors and real and commercial real estate. So a lot of these organizations, I really am flawed the interdisciplinary approach.
So yeah, ULI Economic Club develop a roundtable, our FCC's business coordinating group. What else I'm sure I can come up with.
[01:15:47] Speaker A: What about non bid, non real estate, non real estate?
[01:15:51] Speaker C: Well, the big news in my household is that somehow I am now the mother of a. My, my eldest son recently became a bar mitzvah, which feels like I was adulting in a way that.
So we do. We have been spending a lot of time in our synagogue, in our congregation next year. My youngest is a rising kindergartner and I feel a huge sense of organizational accomplishment.
All three kids will be in the same school next year, so that feels huge.
[01:16:25] Speaker A: Where do you send them?
[01:16:26] Speaker C: They're at the Potomac School.
[01:16:28] Speaker A: Okay, sure. Okay.
[01:16:29] Speaker C: And you know, it's not just the logistics of one bus stop and the, you know, holiday schedules aligning.
I love them all in the same community because they are up in each other's business in a way that the feedback loop at home just benefits. You know, you got our nine year old daughter narcing on our middle school brothers whereabouts and friends and teachers in a way that they probably don't want that. No, of course not. But it's wonderful. I just like that everybody knows everybody's business. And then the little guy who was born in March of 2020, so he was quite a miracle bonus. He is, you know, he's ready to roll. The birth order is real. He punches above his weight class in a way that younger children get. I guess you got to. Yeah, but so we, we have a very, we have, we have a lot of extended family here in D.C. so on any given weekend, it's at McLean Little League or swim team or cousins and aunts and uncles showing up for Sunday dinner. Our Sunday dinners start at about 12 to 15.
So my parents are very involved in the Shakespeare theater. So we see every, every show that comes to the Shakespeare Theater.
[01:17:50] Speaker A: Your parents still live in Garrett park?
[01:17:52] Speaker C: No, they're in D.C. now. They, they. When they were empty nesters in the early 2000s, they lived back in the city for about 20, probably almost 20 years.
But I'm trying to think what is a normal.
We spend a lot of time on sports fields these days. I won't lie.
[01:18:06] Speaker A: There you go. I did too, when I was younger.
[01:18:09] Speaker C: I gotta admit, middle school band is not my favorite place to be, but, you know, it's important.
[01:18:20] Speaker A: So how do you balance family and I mean is it 5050 or.
[01:18:25] Speaker C: I don't know.
Oh, it's a good question. I don't know. I mean, if one more person tells me I need balance, I don't. Look, I wake up every day with so much energy.
My husband laments that I really only have one speed. But I think there's an engagement, right? Like, my kids have been to my construction sites. They come, you know, that's cool.
If there is an event or something I'm speaking at or a panel that might hit somebody's fancy, I one tags along. I mean, I think there's an integration where.
[01:19:00] Speaker A: That's cool.
[01:19:01] Speaker C: Their favorite place on earth when they have a day off a school is to come to work here in Carla's desk right there. We maintain kind of full ppe, child size ppe, but like, it's actually OSHA rated and we have. They can color plan sets and I once threw a set of DD drawings for 605th and asked them to highlight every potty in the building. So it keeps them busy, you know, I don't know. I. You gotta, you know, so I don't. It's not.
They know what I do. They're, you know, they see it, they're engaged in it. And I don't miss the school assembly. I don't miss. I had perfect attendance at Teddy's baseball school baseball team this spring. So, you know, but you know, again, if there's like, you know, a middle school tuba performance and I just, oh, I have a meeting I just can't miss. No, I'm kidding.
[01:20:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:20:00] Speaker C: Yeah. It's about going to, you know, showing up for everything you want to be at.
[01:20:05] Speaker A: So does your husband work in an office too, or is he at home more?
[01:20:10] Speaker C: No, he travels a lot. He's in an office.
We both have five day a week kind of jobs.
But again, I mean, they know his colleagues. We're hosting an event at our house tomorrow night for his colleagues and the kids will all be there bartending and other such things.
So, you know, I mean, life is. Doesn't. I don't know. That's life.
Yeah, but I mean, it's also how I was raised. I mean, I remember my dad, who was in private practice for one of my childhood at law firms, and, you know, I would pack my little briefcase and ride the Metro down with him and raid the law firms.
[01:20:50] Speaker A: What law firm was he at?
[01:20:52] Speaker C: He was at a few. He was Pat and Boggs, Trey Boggs, partner. And had Latham for many years. But my favorite thing to do was to go it's probably, you know, they law. I don't know if they still do. Do they maintain these like epic supply closets with office supplies like basically a mini staples like every color posted in binder clips and highlighters. I'm sure they do, you know, red felt pens and.
[01:21:17] Speaker A: Well, I remember their libraries in the old days and then they used to have, you know, their own computer rooms and everything else, but not anymore.
[01:21:24] Speaker C: Well, and I, you know, for all of our law firm tenants, I know the law firm libraries because you see those in plans and there's structural enhancements. I mean now they've gone so digital. But I don't see the. I don't, I don't. I can actually go take a look at like Winston or Kroll's isn't.
[01:21:40] Speaker A: Don't you have a law firm anchor in this building?
[01:21:42] Speaker C: We have three law firms in this building. We have Winston Straughan as our anchor. We have Axon and then we have a smaller specs.
[01:21:49] Speaker A: And then you'll have a big one in your new building too.
[01:21:52] Speaker C: Crowmore.
[01:21:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Right.
[01:21:54] Speaker C: And Borough has a three as well.
[01:21:56] Speaker A: Yeah. I'd like to be able to figure out a time to go tour.
You're in your fifth street building when you think is a good time to tour. I don't know what is it too early now or is it you want to wait till they finish their spill out there or what?
[01:22:13] Speaker C: It's up to you. We will achieve formal substantial completion later this year at the end of the year.
Crawl and Mooring is currently fitting out their space while we finish base building work. Our lobby is looking pretty good. All of our lobby stone is almost in, but you know, all the finishing touches are commissioned artwork and FF&E. And that will be the later this year.
[01:22:33] Speaker A: I'll. For the listeners, I'm going to post, you know, the link to the, to the website. But boy, that video, I, I watched that today. The one that, you know, I think it's the fifth floor of the building where you walk out on the patio there. It's really cool. That was really well done.
[01:22:50] Speaker C: Yeah. Maybe that's my, my empire. Building goals would be to a large enough D.C. office that would warrant that. That terrace is extraordinary. That overlooks the building, you see.
Yeah, it's special. Special.
[01:23:01] Speaker A: Who was your architect on that building?
[01:23:03] Speaker C: John Picard. Picard Chilton.
[01:23:06] Speaker A: Are they local?
[01:23:07] Speaker C: New Haven.
But in the spirit of partnership, very long track record both with principals at Rockefeller and with Stonebridge.
[01:23:17] Speaker A: Really interesting.
[01:23:20] Speaker C: So I think one of Doug's very first Projects. John Picard was the architect on in Atlanta. And then our principals at Rockefeller have done a number of PCA buildings nationally while at other organizations.
[01:23:33] Speaker A: Who helped you with this building?
[01:23:35] Speaker C: Architectural Fox.
[01:23:37] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
Interesting. So is your process to run RFPs for them? Yes, typically.
But you have a lot of friends, so you can just, you know.
[01:23:48] Speaker C: Sure. But yeah, no, we keep things competitive, for sure. And every project's different.
[01:23:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
So anything you'd like to add? I haven't. We've talked about a lot of things.
[01:24:00] Speaker C: Oh, I'm just so grateful. I mean, I feel, first of all, you are so zippy to rap with.
I could rap with you for hours, John.
I'm grateful to be included.
[01:24:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:24:12] Speaker C: If there's, you know, I will always hop to whenever you put out the call.
[01:24:15] Speaker A: Well, I appreciate that.
So, as you probably know, and if you've listened to enough of them, I ask one big question at the end and it's my billboard question.
So if you had an opportunity to place a billboard on the Capitol Beltway for millions to see, what would it say?
[01:24:35] Speaker C: I think it would be. This is a tough one. I was thinking about this in advance.
[01:24:40] Speaker A: I thought. I thought you would.
[01:24:42] Speaker C: And despite. There's a lot of. A couple Margaret Thatcher quotes I almost came with. But in instead I'm gonna choose one for my dad. And that is hard work gets noticed and beats luck, coincidence and favors.
[01:24:58] Speaker A: Great.
[01:24:59] Speaker C: And you can attribute that to Nick Allard.
[01:25:02] Speaker A: All right.
[01:25:03] Speaker C: But that would be my billboard statement.
[01:25:05] Speaker A: So do you have that on your bedroom wall or something?
[01:25:08] Speaker C: I should. Maybe I'll make some swag. I'll make some coffee mug.
I don't know. Maybe he. He. I. I actually don't know. I should have put it into chat GBT to make sure my attribution was correct, but. But I will attribute it.
[01:25:23] Speaker A: I didn't realize you. You didn't say this up front that you. Your father was an attorney, so I didn't realize that.
What was his specialty?
[01:25:32] Speaker C: Telecom and intellectual property. He is now the dean and president of Jacksonville University's law school.
[01:25:39] Speaker A: Really?
It's funny you mentioned that school because I went down there for an RFP once and walked the campus there.
[01:25:49] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
[01:25:49] Speaker A: It's right on the St. John river there.
[01:25:51] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:25:52] Speaker A: Pretty interesting site location. Yeah.
Have you been down to see.
[01:25:57] Speaker C: Of course. Of course.
[01:25:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:25:59] Speaker C: He. They were in. He was at Brooklyn Law before that. And so I do like their track record of very good places to have a crash pat in. Like where I can take the kids for a weekend.
Both Brooklyn and Jacksonville are two very wonderful places to be.
[01:26:17] Speaker A: Well, Hilary, thank you.
[01:26:18] Speaker C: Thank you for having me.
[01:26:19] Speaker A: Appreciate it very much.
