This semester I participated in a first of its kind course at NYC AAP. The class connected current Masters of Regional Planning (MRP) students directly with alums. The course was titled “Professional Practice Colloquium” and was facilitated by Bob Balder. The course consisted of presentations from NYC based AAP graduates of the Masters of Regional Planning program and the undergraduate Urban and Regional Studies program.
Guests came to AAP NYC’s 17th Street studio on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. Often, visits involved slides combined with casual question and answer sessions. In addition to learning about the myriad of directions the degree can lead, the conversations invariably returned to shared experiences from the halls of West Sibley in Ithaca. In several instances, current MRPs are taking courses with the same professors who inspired the visiting practitioners’ careers.
Here are a few alums we met over the past month:
James Eisenberg (URS ’98 and Baker Real Estate ’02)-
With an undergraduate degree in city planning, James took that degree and applied it to the real estate development industry. He currently heads project development for the real estate investment trust (REIT) Urban American. The company was started in 1997 by James’ father, Philip Eisenberg. The company operates with the purpose of acquiring, upgrading, and managing middle income housing in the NYC area. Operating for the past 15 years, the firm now manages up to 14,000 units at any given moment.
During James’ visit we learned about his career background, the operations of Urban American, and the linkages between a planning degree and the real estate world. James sees a strong connection between success in real estate and understanding the rhythm of the broader city. Interpreting neighborhood trends and ensuring communication between residents and property managers are skills he believes he honed while studying planning at Cornell.
An example of how James facilitates better communicate between residents and property management is through design. In his role as head of development and construction he leads a push to relocate management offices to the street front upon Urban American’s purchase of buildings. By inviting communication with residents, he finds that this increases the sense of community, and helps to quickly reveal impending problems.
With all of the Cornell focus aimed at Roosevelt Island, it is serendipitous that James’ family-operated REIT also owns the largest complex of residential apartments buildings on Roosevelt Island. The complex called Roosevelt Landings, formerly Eastwood, was designed in the 1970s by José Luis Sert.
Of the many holdings in Urban American’s portfolio, Roosevelt Landing is a particular passion for James. This is due in part to the coming development of the Cornell Tech campus, but also to the building complex’s novel vacuum garbage collection system. Like the vacuum tubes at the bank, which move money and cheques from the car drive-through to bank tellers, the garbage vacuum allows for garbage to be sucked to the far end of the island away from the development. This means that many fewer garbage trucks rumble up and down the single Main Street road that connects the north and south ends of the island.
Beyond garbage, what also excites James about the coming Cornell development is its potential to improve the quality of life on the island. For many years, Roosevelt Island’s residents have existed in something of a food desert. With a population of roughly 14,000 people there were very limited amenities. James explained that part of the reason for the limited amenities is the island’s unusual land lease structure.
Roosevelt Island is owned by New York City, but most all of the land outside of the future Cornell footprint and a hospital on the north end of the island is under a 99 year land lease to the State of New York. The State of New York’s Empire Development Corporation subleases land to private developers like Urban American and Related Companies. However, until recently, the State of New York retained control of leasing all ground floor retail. Over the years, the challenges of the physical form of the ground floor spaces combined with lack of leasing expertise resulted in many vacant storefronts. The arrival of Cornell combined with the State relinquishing control of retail leasing space represent a significant change.
Julio Peterson (URS ’86)- Passing most of his days in Manhattan’s Theater District, Julio’s profession represents an interesting twist on the typical planning career. For the past 13 years he has worked for the largest owner of stage theaters in NYC, the Shubert Organization. His current title is VP of Real Estate and he is also a board member of the Municipal Art Society (a very cool organization I wrote about here).
After graduating from Cornell’s Urban and Regional Studies as an undergraduate, Julio returned to his native New York City where he worked for the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC). During his tenure at NYCEDC he focused on work in Harlem where he served as project manager for several large scale projects, among them The Malcolm X Memorial at the Audubon Ballroom and the Julia De Burgos Latino Cultural Center in East Harlem.
Following four years at NYCEDC Julio went onto spend three years as director of the Neighborhood Builders Program, a nonprofit that facilitated minority women and men being involved in the real estate development of distressed neighborhoods. As director, Julio facilitated the investment of $300 million into multi-family homes throughout NYC.
At this point in Julio’s career, he made the decision to return to school for a masters in real estate development from Harvard. Upon graduating he worked a short while for KPMG before moving to his current employer, The Shubert Organization. Julio’s timeline with Shubert aligned perfectly with the rezoning of New York City’s theater district.
First established in 1998, the Theater Subdistrict was created by the New York City Planning Commission in order to protect the “concentration of over 40 Broadway theaters [which] make the Theater District one of the most well-known areas in the world.” A central part of the Theater District’s designation as a subdistrict was the creation and regulation of an air-rights market place. This area covers the blocks between Sixth to Eighth Avenues and 40th to 57th Avenue.
As theaters in this part of midtown Manhattan are not “the highest and best use”, City Planning created an air rights transfer market to encourage the maintenance and reinvestment by property owners into existing theaters. By generating money from the air-rights market, property owners can sell off unbuilt floor area and thereby leave theaters standing. In effect theater properties are able to capitalize on their location through selling unused vertical space. Working for Shubert, Julio has become an expert in the deal making around transfer development rights (TDRs).
Kate Bicknell (URS ’99)-
Combining an undergraduate degree in planning with a Masters in Business Administration, Kate is in the midst of a fascinating career. Immediately after Cornell she went to work as a legislative aide for Senator Patrick Moynihan. Representing the people of New York State and with a background in Sociology, Senator Moynihan was known for his passion for cities and the built environment. Kate’s planning background from the URS program situated her perfectly to work on Moynihan’s staff.
After Moynihan left the US Senate in 2001, Kate stayed in Washington D.C. working as Federal Policy Director for Smart Growth America. Following four years of government and nonprofit work Kate then transitioned to the pursuit of an MBA at Wharton. While in Philadelphia, Kate had the good fortune of meeting Eileen Weingarten, a Cornell B.Arch alum. In her capacity as a Vice President at Forest City Ratner Companies, Weigarten was giving a guest lecture at Wharton. From this fortuitous connection and a follow-up coffee, on graduating from Wharton in 2005 Kate joined the Commercial & Residential Development division of Forest City.
Since joining Forest City Ratner, Kate has combined her public and private sector knowledge to help in the construction of several high profile developments. One such development is Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn. In building the Barclay’s Center atop the Atlantic Yards, Kate was central in the negotiations between the City, State of New York and the MTA in expanding the existing subway station beneath the stadium. Barclays Center is the first major new sports and entertainment complex in New York City since 1968. In total the subways system addition cost Forest City more than $70 million.
While visiting with the MRP students, Kate also shared a great deal about the new construction techniques being used by Forest City Ratner in building the rest of the buildings in the Atlantic Yards complex. One example is in the foreground of the above image which is the base of New York City’s first high rise apartment building to be built wholly out of prefabricated units. In collaboration with Skanska construction, Forest City Ratner established a new business that builds complete apartment units modularly offsite.
Using dockside warehouse facilities in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a new construction entity called FC + Skanska Modular is building complete modular apartments. The idea is that most of the construction may occur in a controlled warehouse environment, essentially creating the Lego blocks that are apartments that will be fit together on site at Atlantic Yards. Once each apartment is constructed and then transported from the Navy Yards to the Barclay’s site, the only thing to do is attach the units. Everything from wiring to the installation of toilet paper dispensers occurs while the modular units are in the warehouse at the Navy Yards.
As all things Cornell lead to Roosevelt Island these days, it is another coincidence that Kate’s new major duty as a VP at Forest City Ratner is managing the development of Cornell’s first building on the new Cornell Tech campus. In June of 2013, Cornell selected Forest City Ratner as the “master developer” for the new campus. As the campus takes shape it will be great to know an AAP alum is in the middle of it all.