Real Estate

From November 3-4, 2014, 20 students of the Columbia Business School Real Estate Association traveled to San Francisco to explore the market landscape and learn how San Francisco-based companies are taking advantage of local, national, and international opportunities. The group had informational meetings and site visits with real estate developers and investment and private equity companies.

On Friday, October 31, 2014, members of the Real Estate Association and Paul Milstein Center staff met with Brookfield Property Group CEO, Ric Clark, and other members of the Brookfield team for a discussion regarding the Manhattan real estate market and Brookfield’s newest acquisitions and developments.

The Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate hosted a full-day, interactive workshop on negotiating real estate joint-venture agreements at Columbia Business School on Friday, October 24. Hosted in conjunction with the MIT Center for Real Estate and Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), the event attracted over 60 participants from Columbia, MIT, and Harvard with professional backgrounds ranging from business, consulting, private equity, real estate development, urban planning, law, and public policy. Mentoring the students were some of New York’s top business and law professionals, who helped students understand the key provisions of joint-venture contracts, including overall project risk, risk allocation, governance, and fee and incentive structures. The teams then negotiated those provisions before a panel of prominent industry experts, receiving additional feedback at the conclusion of the negotiation.

On Friday, November 7, 2014, the Real Estate Association (REA) students met with a team of real estate experts at the global headquarters of Cushman & Wakefield in midtown Manhattan to discuss the current state of the leasing and capital markets in New York.

On Monday, October 27, 2014, in conjunction with the Skyscraper Museum’s exhibition TIMES SQUARE, 1984, Professor Lynne B. Sagalyn, discussed her book Times Square Roulette: Remaking the City Icon (MIT Press 2001).

Tommy Craig ’82 is a Senior Managing Director with Hines. Since joining the firm in 1982, Mr. Craig has been involved in a variety of development projects and transactions aggregating approximately 16 million square feet. In 1996, Mr. Craig became regional officer and partner of Hines’ Metropolitan New York area, where his responsibilities as senior project officer included managing the development, redevelopment, acquisition, construction, modification and/or interior fit-out on projects such as 7 Bryant Park, and the MoMA tower at 53 West 53rd Street. Mr. Craig attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received his Bachelor of Arts in History/Economics in 1978, and Columbia Business School, where he earned his Master of Business Administration in 1982. Mr. Craig remains active with CBS as an adjunct professor teaching Real Estate Development, and will serve as this year’s Chair of the annual CBS Real Estate Symposium. In a recent interview with Dennis Giuliano ’15, he discussed his career, his insights into the real estate market, and advice for MBA graduates.

On Friday, October 10, 2014, the Real Estate Association students and Paul Milstein Center staff met with Jason Pizer, President of Trinity Real Estate, and his team to discuss the history of Hudson Square and tour numerous Trinity properties and development sites in the Hudson Square submarket.

Aaron Kazam '15, co-president of the Real Estate Association (REA), has been awarded a Pension Real Estate Association (PREA) scholarship for the 2014-15 academic year.

Joseph Azrack ’72 is the Founder and currently Senior Advisor to Apollo Global Real Estate Management. He has over 30 years of real estate investment management experience. Mr. Azrack is also an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School where he is a member of, and for many years chaired, the Real Estate Program Advisory Board. He will be teaching Real Estate Entrepreneurship, which will be offered for the first time in fall 2014. In a recent interview with Adam Koplewicz ’15, he discussed his career, advice for graduates, and his formative experiences at CBS.

This annual gathering of Columbia Business School real estate alumni took place on May 8 at the Columbia Club of New York. The 2014 Annual Real Estate Alumni Reception honored Distinguished Real Estate Partner Hugh R. Frater ’85 of Berkadia.