“Moving underutilized and underperforming assets out of the building portfolio allows us to tailor a smaller federal footprint with better buildings — modernized and optimized for federal agency missions,” Melanie Gilbert, GSA’s acting administrator and regional commissioner for the capital region, said in a statement. 

The Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service, currently housed in the Liberty Loan Building at 401 14th Street SW, will relocate downtown to the U.S. Mint headquarters sometime next spring, GSA said. By vacating the 141,000-square-foot property, the government is poised to save roughly $15 million in reinvestment costs, officials estimated. 

The historic Liberty Loan complex overlooks the Jefferson Memorial and Washington Monument, and exists as the city’s last surviving WWI temporary building. Though it was renovated multiple times over the past 100 years, most recently in 1987, it has “outlived its useful life,” GSA said. 

No plans have yet been announced for the space’s redevelopment, though GSA officials noted their move would enable “the community and local officials to pursue meaningful, continued use of this high-profile real estate.” The nearby Portals I office building was purchased by London-based private equity firm Henderson Park for $26 million last year, and Henderson recently announced a partnership with Los Angeles-based developer Lowe to convert the 526,000-square-foot development into 421 residential units and 69,000 square feet of retail space. 

The Liberty Loan Building announcement comes amid the federal government’s decades-long push to decrease its real estate footprint, an effort catalyzed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the transition to remote work it brought about.

President Joe Biden, for his part, proposed the appropriation of $425 million in his fiscal year 2025 budget for a real estate optimization program, to allow GSA to “reconfigure and renovate federal buildings to better utilize space and to expedite the disposition of unneeded federal facilities,” per an agency release.

Last year, GSA announced plans to dispose of 23 properties in its portfolio, including the Department of Homeland Security’s former headquarters in Northwest D.C. and a 19th century schoolhouse downtown that’s been vacant since the 1980s. The agency is also involved in the impending relocation of the FBI headquarters from Pennsylvania Avenue in D.C. to Greenbelt, Md., a plan that’s prompted major disputes between lawmakers and local officials. 

A study released last month by the congressionally established Public Buildings Reform Board found federal agencies in D.C. use an average of just 12 percent of their office space, and 24 agency headquarters examined in the study only utilize about a quarter of their space more broadly. GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan recently penned an op-ed urging Congress to give her agency greater discretion over how it uses GSA’s Federal Buildings Fund to enable building maintenance, renovations and other repairs to facilitate better utilization.

As of September of last year, the federal government owned 511 million square feet of office space, of which GSA oversees roughly 70 percent. The agency said it has cut approximately 12 million owned square feet and reduced 14 million leased square feet since 2013.

A spokesperson for Feil declined to share the asking rent, but average asking rent for office space in Chelsea was $74.06  per square foot in the first quarter of 2024, according to a Cushman & Wakefield report.

SmartFlyer’s current headquarters are at 347 West 36th Street in the Garment District, according to its LinkedIn page. It also lists addresses in Hohokus, N.J.; Clayton, Mo.; Atlanta; Philadelphia; and several in Australia on its website.

The agency specializes in full-service travel packages for corporate clients and deep-pocketed vacationers. 

SmartFlyer’s founder and CEO, Michael Holtz, said in a statement that the location and type of building were particularly important to the company in its search for a new home in New York City. 

“We wanted to be in a creative area to reflect our team’s brand value, as well as a space that will encourage excitement about coming to a space that most of us call home,” Holtz said. 

Compass’ David Graff arranged the deal for SmartFlyer while Andrew Wiener, Rob Fisher and Henry Korzec represented Feil in-house. Graff did not respond to a request for comment.

Weiner said in a statement that Feil is taking a “detail-oriented approach” to design SmartFlyer’s space, which includes a private roof deck and a spiral staircase connecting the penthouse to the floor below.

Feil purchased 530 West 25th and neighboring 520 West 25th Avenue in 2019 for $72 million and redeveloped both loft buildings into boutique office properties. The ground floor of 530 West 25th is currently occupied by two art galleries: Agora Gallery and Winston Wächter Fine Art.

Abigail Nehring can be reached at anehring@commercialobserver.com.

Nuveen purchased the 1.1 million-square-foot office building for $172 million in 2002, according to property records. The tower was built in 1986, and Chicago-based Nuveen spent $30 million renovating the property in 2021. 

JLL has the selling assignment for 701 Brickell. If the building is sold, the deal would mark Nuveen’s second office sale along Brickell Avenue. In October, it sold the 801 Brickell office high-rise for $250 million to Monarch Alternative Capital and Tourmaline Capital Partners. 

Representatives for Nuveen and JLL did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The pandemic prompted high-earning Northerners and wealthy companies to move to Brickell, which filled residential and office buildings. Now, property owners want to cash in. 

Aimco has put the 32-story Brickell Bay Office Tower and the adjacent 31-story Yacht Club Apartments on the market, seeking a combined $650 million. The City of Miami wants as much as $40 million for the Vice City Marina. 

Julia Echikson can be reached at jechikson@commercialobserver.com. 

Moreover, a majority of workers indicated that they viewed the push to return to the office poorly. More than half (56 percent) said their senior leaders had not “clearly explained the purpose” of returning to in-person work, and two-thirds argued they’re less productive in the office than they are working at home.

“We proved how beneficial and productive a modern telework environment can be,” one survey respondent wrote. “Why would I want to go back to the ‘old way’ of doing things that is obviously a relic of the past?”

Workers pointed to difficult commutes and a lack of “peace and quiet” in the office as some reasons for their disinterest in returning to in-person work. Agency-led efforts to boost collaboration received mixed feedback; “core collaboration days” designed to boost staff productivity and collegiality were often viewed as neutral or negative, with more than 40 percent of respondents suggesting collaboration days hurt staff morale.

Most employees, meanwhile, viewed the push to return to the office as politically or economically motivated, suggesting their leaders were responding to pressure from Congress or other stakeholders hoping to revitalize downtown areas where many federal buildings are headquartered.

Indeed, lawmakers in Washington have ramped up efforts to force federal workers back to the office, probing agencies for more data on teleworking employees and mandating they submit “action plans” detailing agencies’ in-office requirements. In early 2023, the Republican-led House passed HR 139 — dubbed the “SHOW UP Act” — requiring federal agencies to reinstate policies in place before the COVID-19 pandemic that limited teleworking. To date, the Senate has yet to take up the measure, though Republican lawmakers have harshened their rhetoric on the topic.

“You have bureaucrats that are doing bubble baths during their conference calls for work,” Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican, told reporters late last year. “So you federal employees that are out there, we’re coming after you.”

Ernst and Democratic co-sponsor Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) recently introduced a new Senate measure to increase transparency and oversight of federal teleworking policies. Biden and congressional Democrats, for their part, have largely toed the line, seeking to woo workers back to the office and revitalize downtown spaces without angering federal employee unions with whom they’re often aligned.

Last April, the White House Office of Management and Budget issued a memo to the heads of federal agencies ordering more documentation of telework policies and pushing leaders to increase “meaningful” in-person work opportunities but stopping short of a return-to-work mandate.

Yet, state and local leaders have been some of the loudest advocates for federal workers to return to the office, regardless of their political affiliation.

“We need decisive action by the White House to either get most federal workers back to the office most of the time or to realign their vast property holdings,” Democratic Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser said during her third inaugural address last year.

Plans for the renovated property include four soundstages, each about 18,000 square feet on average, as well as 82,000 square feet of additional production support space, the developers said. David Behin of Newmark brokered the sale for Bungalow and Bain.

Behin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The new facility joins a growing portfolio of production spaces for Bungalow in New York City. Earlier this year, the firm paid $26.7 million to Fortress Investment Group for 215 Moore Street in Bushwick. Bungalow plans to transform that property into a 330,000-square-foot production complex with six soundstages and 92,000 square feet of support space.

“We are excited to continue to expand our studio portfolio with Bain Capital and believe [the building], with its market-leading specs and location in Red Hook’s vibrant creative community, will be a great addition to New York’s content production ecosystem,” Bungalow co-founder Travis Feehan said in a statement. 

The Wolcott Street studio will join several others spread across Kings County, including a nearby film and TV production studio at 744 Clinton Street being developed by Samson Stages.

Bain Capital, for its part, is also investing heavily in production facilities. 

The firm and its other partner, Bardas Investment Group, won approval last month to build a 510,300-square-foot soundstage and office complex at 5601 Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood, which they dubbed Echelon Studios. The companies are also planning a $600 million, 620,000-square-foot production campus at 6311 Romaine Street in Hollywood, about a mile west of the Santa Monica Boulevard project.

Both of Bungalow’s Brooklyn studios will also fall under the Echelon brand.

“There is a pronounced supply-demand imbalance for high-quality infill purpose-built soundstages in New York, and we believe there will be enduring demand growth for best-in-class production space in New York given its robust and growing creative talent base,” Bain Capital partner Joe Marconi said in a statement. 

Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commercialobserver.com.

The battle between Schanzer and the six-member Whitestone board shines a spotlight on the contentious power struggles that can unfold in the boardrooms and shareholder meetings of publicly traded real estate investment trusts. 

Whitestone’s stock price sits at $11.44 (as of Monday afternoon) — virtually unchanged from its $11.51 offering price from August 2010. The stock sank as low as $5.30 in April 2020, and has spent 641 of the last 700 days below its IPO price, according to an April 2024 presentation submitted to shareholders by Erez Asset Management. 

In January 2022, Whitestone fired longtime CEO James Mastandrea, who had served in that role since 2006, for cause. A district court in Harris County, Texas, in December 2023 dismissed all claims made by Mastandrea against Whitestone in a $25 million civil suit. David Holeman, who served as Whitestone’s CFO from 2006 to 2022, has been the firm’s CEO since 2022, with David Taylor as independent chairman.  

Through Erez Asset Management, Schanzer has already purchased a 1.7 percent stake in Whitestone with the hope of working with existing management and board to improve the REIT’s performance by focusing on how dividends are allocated. He aims to join the board together with his colleague, Cathy Clark, an investor in the shopping center space, following a shareholder conference call and vote on May 14.  

“All I’m asking for is to sit in the room with the other directors and share ideas,” Schanzer told CO in an exclusive interview. “I very much believe in collegial collaboration at the board level, and I believe with my background and Cathy’s background, we will add value to the board.”  

As the former CEO and director of Cedar Realty Trust, a real estate investment trust also specializing in shopping centers, Schanzer said that he served on Cedar’s board alongside other real estate CEOs, senior executives, real estate investors, and hedge fund managers to improve corporate governance. Schanzer sold Cedar’s entire portfolio for $1.2 billion in 2022. 

In an April 9 letter to shareholders, Schanzer argued that none of Whitestone’s six current board trustees hold “any prior shopping center, public REIT, or real estate capital markets experience.” 

“A lot of what we’re going to do, if we join the board, is bring in very elementary REIT management ideas that it appears are not being pursued at Whitestone: rigorous capital allocation based on detailed financial analyses, comprehensive multiyear corporate forecasting, a focus on net asset value, and a focus on providing reliable internal and external projections,” he told CO.  

“These are things a good board oversees and makes sure are being done well,” he added.  

Schanzer approached the Whitestone board last October about improving the REIT’s performance, and he and Clark were nominated by Erez as candidates for the board in December. Since then the Whitestone board has rebuffed both executives at every turn, according to Schanzer. 

“The company has completely stonewalled me, while also mischaracterizing our limited interactions,” said Schanzer. 

In the April 9 letter to shareholders, Schanzer argued that Whitestone’s board failed to meet three key quantitative performance targets it set out to achieve in 2023: FFO per share (referring to funds from operations, a proxy for cash flow); same-store NOI (net operating income, or revenue) growth; and a reduction of net debt to EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization). 

He said the company is “dead last” among its 13 shopping center peers in the REIT space when it comes to FFO per share growth, and is “1,000 basis points worse than its closest peer.” 

Peers listed by Schanzer in his presentations to shareholders with similar adjusted funds from operations (AFFO) include Kite Realty Group Trust, Brixmor Property Group, Kimco Realty and Acadia Realty Trust.  

A strong rebuff 

It’s not as though Whitestone hasn’t heard Schanzer’s complaints. The board has made it clear to Schanzer that it does not value his ideas or attempts to muscle his way into a leadership role. 

In a Dec. 13, 2023, letter addressed to Schanzer, Whitestone’s six-person board said that Schanzer’s plans to replicate the business strategy he used for Cedar at Whitstone fails to account for the differences in their respective business models or changes in market conditions since his time at Cedar ended in 2022. 

“You ignore the strong total shareholder returns we have generated recently. Since the beginning of 2022, Whitestone has delivered plus 26 percent total shareholder return, far outpacing the average total shareholder return of negative 7 percent for other shopping center REITs,” the board wrote. “We think that our shareholder returns under our new CEO and executive team since mid-2022 speak for themselves.”  

The board also told Schanzer that he has attempted to nominate four board members, not two, to control a majority, and that his “only stated objective is to embark on an immediate sale or liquidation of the company.” 

Schanzer and Erez Asset Management fired off a combative letter to shareholders on April 26, arguing that Whitestone has attempted to damage his credibility and is falsely peddling the narrative that Schanzer intends to sell Whitestone if achieves a seat on the board. 

“Mr. Schanzer initially approached the company shortly after Bloomberg reported interest from a buyer because he feared that the board would hastily sell the company,” the letter read. “His advice and input was not to rush into a sale.”

The REIT issued another shareholder letter on April 29, directly acknowledging the fact that Schanzer had called for a D-Day vote on May 14, and asked shareholders to vote for Whitestone’s two existing trustees who are up for re-election to the board, not for Schanzer or Clark.  

“We are also concerned as a new activist, Erez Asset Management, threatens to disrupt our progress, derail our strategy, and destroy our momentum to generate value for our shareholders,” said the board in its April 29 letter. ‘“We do feel a duty … to expose the inconsistent and incoherent strategy advocated by Erez, which is focused on disrupting the work that is continuing to take place to drive value.”  

In the recent shareholder letter, Whitestone argued that Schanzer and Clark “ignore recent positive momentum” achieved under Whitestone’s new leadership, and are unduly focused on past actions taken by the board during Mastandrea’s tenure as CEO. The letter also accused Schander and Clark of “value destruction” in their oversight and sales of Cedar Realty Trust and RPT Realty, respectively. 

“The choice is clear, Whitestone has a cohesive board and management team with a track record of value creation,” wrote the board. “In contrast, Erez is nominating two interlocked trustees with a public track record of self-dealing, underperformance and value destruction, and with the single-minded strategy to sell the company under adverse market conditions.”

Capital concerns

The allocation of capital lies at the heart of Schanzer’s issue with Whitestone’s management. 

As landlords that lease space and collect rent on their properties, REITs distribute that income as dividends to shareholders. REITs’ tax structure requires them to pay a minimum of 90 percent of taxable income to shareholders as dividends each year. 

But Whitestone’s dividend has been manipulated by management’s decision to sell hundreds of millions of dollars of equity at a discount to net asset value (NAV), according to Schanzer. 

In multiple letters to shareholders, Schanzer has argued that Whitestone’s current board has repeatedly issued equity at steep discounts to net asset values (the value of REIT assets minus liabilities, divided by number of outstanding shares) and then used much of that equity to fund dividends. Furthermore, Schanzer has noted that roughly 39 percent of those dividends were simply a return of its shareholder capital, rather than a distribution of the REIT’s taxable income, as required by REIT rules. 

Schanzer has estimated that Whitestone’s leadership has “destroyed” roughly $80 million in value on account of its history of issuing $470 million of equity at a 19 percent discount to NAV, and since its IPO has distributed roughly $129 million of dividends (39 percent of distributions) that were “simply a return of shareholder capital” rather than profits or capital gains.    

In response, Whitestone again re-emphasized the management changes since 2022, and said that since this period it has not issued any equity, and that its dividend has been nearly 100 percent ordinary income, with no return of capital in 2022 and only a 2 percent capital return in 2023. 

“Erez’s argument focuses on time prior to Mr. Holeman’s appointment, and is therefore misleading,” said David Mordy, director of investor relations at Whitestone, in a statement to CO. 

Finally, Schanzer took aim at the firm’s net debt ratio to its EBITDA. At nearly eight times EBITDA, Whitestone’s leverage has limited the firm’s ability to grow, he argued. He said the firm’s oversized platform is “squandering over $8 million per year,” which represents roughly $115 million in equity value.

“Because of all these avoidable mistakes they’ve made, they’ve allowed the company to become overlevered,” he said. “They’ve become this bloated company that’s too small with overhead that is too high.”

The former Cedar CEO believes Whitestone’s stock should be trading at closer to $16 or $17 per share than its current price of $11.44. 

“Taken together, this is roughly $6 per share in value lost, which is the difference between where Whitestone is trading today and our estimate of its NAV, which is where I think it could be trading with better board oversight and management,” he said. 

In response, Whitestone argued that it has improved its debt-to-EBITDA ratio from 10.2x to 7.8x, and that its net debt-to-EBITDA ratio for 2024 is forecasted to be an improved 6.6x to 7x.

“Mr. Schanzer ignores the direction of Whitestone’s leverage metrics,” said Whitestone’s Mordy. “This rapid progress has been achieved through a combination of earnings growth and free cash flow.  In addition, we have a singular event on the horizon that will improve the balance sheet — collection of the judgment against Pillarstone REIT.”   

Schazner’s comments are not entirely negative. In several detailed presentations to shareholders, Schanzer has documented all of the positives that Whitestone’s portfolio carries: a diverse tenant base, well-capitalized shopping center assets, and a majority of spaces under 10,000 square feet.  

All told, the REIT’s portfolio includes 55 retail spaces among 1,453 tenants spread across 5 million square feet. Nearly half of the REIT’s portfolio exists in the Phoenix area, with substantial portions in Houston, Dallas, Fort-Worth, Austin and San Antonio.  

“The thing to appreciate about Whitestone is that it trades at the lowest earnings multiple and at the biggest discount to net asset value of any of the other shopping center REITs it frequently cites as its peers,” said Schanzer. “This is a company that would be worth significantly more per share if it simply executes better.” 

Brian Pascus can be reached at bpascus@commercailobserver.com

Asking rent was $58 per square foot in the 12-story office building between West 34th and West 35th streets near the Empire State Building.

Mundi Westport, which sells its leather accessories to Timberland, Skechers, Nautica and other big names in fashion, is headquartered in Pine Brook, N.J., and uses its Madison Avenue space as a showroom, according to its website. It renewed its lease for 15,592 square feet at 183 Madison in 2013, as CO previously reported. 

The leather manufacturer’s new space is about 30 percent smaller but comes with a Fifth Avenue address.

Newmark (NMRK)’s Brian Waterman, Lance Korman and David Waterman arranged the deal for Mundi Westport while Colliers (CIGI)’ Michael Joseph, Aidan Campbell and Jordy Elardo represented Joseph P. Day.

Both Newmark’s and Colliers’ brokers declined to comment.

The tenant roster at 366 Fifth Avenue has gained a few other new names recently, including souvenir maker NY Gifts, Korean cosmetics brand Nature Republic and Italian-style ice cream shop Julietta Gelato, as CO reported last year.

The 120-year-old real estate company that owns the 147,595-square foot building is named after the late real estate auctioneer Joseph Day, a star broker in his time who sold “about one-third of the Bronx, one-third of Queens and a generous slice of Brooklyn,” according to his obituary in the New York Times. Day died in 1944.

Abigail Nehring can be reached at anehring@commercialobserver.com. 

It was not immediately clear how much space WeWork had at each of the locations. 

The company also simultaneously filed to keep seven other leases across the country and in British Columbia, Canada. Those properties are at 379 West Broadway in Manhattan; 195 Montague Street in Brooklyn; 1 Belvedere Place in Mill Valley, Calif.; Clearfork in Fort Worth, Texas; Sunset North in Bellevue, Wash.; 1099 Stewart Street in Seattle; and at Bentall II in Vancouver, B.C.

The motions come at a precarious time for WeWork. 

The company announced Monday that it secured $450 million in financing, along with a restructuring deal that would help it shed $4 billion in debt obligations, to help it exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy by the end of next month. Most of that funding, $337 million, comes from real estate tech company Yardi Systems, with the remaining funds coming from a gaggle of bondholders. The deal leaves out co-founder and former CEO Adam Neumann, who, through his new venture Flow, had offered to buy the company back for between $600 million and 900 million.

In mid-March, WeWork filed to keep another large lease in Los Angeles, at 10250 Constellation Boulevard, dubbed Constellation Place, along with seven others across the U.S. and Canada. The company previously offered leasing on nearly 90,000 square feet of space at the 35-story tower in Century City, according to a leasing brochure for the tower. 

Meanwhile, the co-working giant has dumped 80 of its global leases during its bankruptcy process, including at Downtown L.A.’s Gas Company Tower. The company claims to have avoided $8 billion in future rent payments throughout its bankruptcy by getting out of leases. 

A spokesperson for WeWork did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commercialobserver.com.

That’s not quite enough diodes for high-res video ads, but the illuminated display will more than suffice for Vornado’s purposes — one-upping the Empire State Building when the Rangers win a home game, for instance, according to Dan Shannon, a partner at MdeAS Architects.

“It can move. It’s dynamic. You can do anything you want,” Shannon said. 

That’s all part of the plan for the Bustle, which perfectly overlaps the footprint of the original head house of the 1910 Beaux-Arts train hall that New York City demolished in 1963, an imprudent decision in hindsight, since some 650,000 commuters now pass through the station every day. 

Despite its allusion to history, the Bustle looks quite futuristic, more like something NASA would design instead of McKim, Mead & White. 

“These are monstrous pieces of glass,” Shannon said, pointing to the Bustle’s 22-foot transparent sheath. “We particularly wanted transparency and reflectivity here.”

Anyone who wants to get above the fray, but doesn’t fancy taking an elevator into the upper echelons of the 1.8 million-square-foot Penn 2, can rent either of the Bustle’s two 44,000-square-foot, column-free, double-height floors. They are suspended 44 feet above Seventh Avenue on enormous white diagonal trusses, which the project’s structural engineers cleverly anchored into the original 1910 building foundations.

That anchoring trick is what makes the whole conceit of the Bustle possible, according to Shannon. 

“When the knuckleheads chopped down the building, they left the granite foundations,” Shannon said. “We could not support the building on something that required changing the flow of traffic below. We could not stop the trains … And that’s why we have these slanted columns to support this massive load.”

The Bustle contains some of the largest column-free office space in the city and offers a bird’s eye view of the street scene playing out like a silent movie below. Across the avenue is the demolished site of the former Pennsylvania Hotel, which will remain an eyesore for the foreseeable future while Vornado figures out what to do with it.

A+I founder Brad Zizmor is all too eager to begin designing the interior of the Bustle, and plans to capitalize on its mix of contrasting ceiling heights, ample natural light, and about 20,000 square feet of landscaped roof terrace.

If all goes according to plan, Penn District commuters pausing to look up from the scrum below will see a nerve center for a business that leases the unconventional space stretching the length of two city blocks.

“Thinking about it from the inside out allows you to get that variety of space, which makes the day rich,” Zizmor said. “It’s almost a metaphor for what we’re looking for as we come back into cities and come back to work side by side. You’ll spend a certain amount of your day at the desk and then come back out to the open environment. It’s really hard to do in a conventional office building.”

Abigail Nehring can be reached at anehring@commercialobserver.com. 

Following her time in Project Destined’s internship program, Ciacciarelli continued with the organization through affiliated classes, which helped her prepare for a career in real estate.

In 2020, Project Destined expanded beyond its internship program to develop online courses for college students. Graduate school professors within the Project Destined framework teach the classes, which cover industry fundamentals such as development, capital markets, underwriting and the like. 

But, just like Ciacciarelli’s career, Project Destined appears to be just getting started. Now, the organization is expanding beyond both its internship program and previous course offerings to launch a full portfolio of real estate courses through the Project Destined Real Estate Certificate Program. Through a practical, hands-on curriculum, university students can earn a certificate in real estate, ideally included in the cost of their tuition — even at schools that don’t offer such certification. Depending on the school, students can also earn academic credit and have the chance to earn scholarship stipends.

To make the program a reality, Project Destined just announced a partnership with BGO and Walker & Dunlop. “Not all universities have a real estate curriculum and internships don’t always result in college credits,” Susan Weber, executive vice president, community engagement at Walker & Dunlop, told Commercial Observer via email. “This is a win-win. They get credit, experience and access to a whole network of experts who can help mentor them on their journey.”

Through those corporate partnerships, the certificate courses don’t require any investment on the university’s behalf; Project Destined promises to not only build a curriculum but to also deliver training, engage adjunct professors and then offer course loads every semester, with a set amount of slots available to a given university. 

“How can you get to the NFL if you don’t go to a school with college football?” said Cedric Bobo, Project Destined’s CEO and co-founder. Real estate has historically consisted of family businesses, he said, so there is a massive gap in the industry when it comes to low-cost access to great training. Case in point: Project Destined has nurtured the careers of  more than 8,000 students across 1,300 universities, “but 90 percent of our students go to colleges where they don’t have real estate programs,” Bobo said. 

Even when a school offers a real estate major or concentration — or both, as in the case of Baruch — Project Destined’s classes come in handy. The courses are meant to complement what a university, like Baruch, already offers, said Bobo. Take Ciacciarelli, a major in business administration, who didn’t know if she necessarily wanted a degree in real estate. Ultimately, she  opted for the concentration — but only after she’d already gleaned industry exposure from her time in Project Destined. 

Project Destined’s courses have already proven successful across universities from Manhattan’s Baruch to the Bronx’s Lehman College. Yet Project Destined is now taking things a step further with a curriculum of more than 10 courses.

Across those schools, students will have access to options that include commercial real estate fundamentals, real estate development, asset management, and financial modeling, among others. Instructors include professionals and academics — Project Destined identified professors who were experts in course topics, as well as industry practitioners — and Bobo himself does some of the teaching. His class on real estate investment and management includes meeting hours with mentors and teammates and combines project-based, experiential learning with lectures.

At Lehman College, for example, students can take Project Destined’s classes for course credit. The cost of the classes is included in a student’s standard college fees, explained Bobo, who called the course credit component “a massive win.” 

Schools like Lehman College primarily serve commuter students who comprise a diverse economic population. By lowering the cost of a real estate education, more people can explore the field, said Bobo, whose courses are intentionally virtual; the digital aspect reduces the cost of delivery and allows for better access and the ability to scale.

“[We’re] lowering the cost and [we’re] also expanding access,” said Bobo, “Because the kids are getting low-cost education, but now they’re getting access to professionals in our 250 different firms.”

The push for real estate education goes beyond Project Destined. Partnerships between universities and real estate heavy-hitters are expanding, as there’s an increased demand for both talent and more accessible, hands-on real estate courses. In October, Morehouse College — a historically Black college and university (HBCU) in Atlanta — raised $3 million from Prologis to develop its real estate program. 

Meanwhile, not far from Morehouse, another Atlanta HBCU, Morris Brown College, caught the attention of Raoul Thomas, founder and CEO at CGI Merchant Group. After losing its accreditation in 2002, Morris Brown struggled financially and filed for bankruptcy. In 2021, CGI saw an opportunity to partner with the college; the company announced development plans for a 130-key hotel on Morris Brown’s campus with instructional space for a corresponding hospitality management training program. Right now, CGI is in the stages of getting its design finalized, with hopes to open the new development in 2026. (In 2022, Morris Brown regained its accreditation.) 

Through the program, Morris Brown students can experience the industry firsthand via internships and rotations at the hotel, in addition to their in-classroom studies. (Continuing with the theme of partnerships, Hilton — which will operate the hotel — contributed about 5,000 hospitality books to the school, said Thomas.) The curricula minutiae is ultimately up the school, clarified Thomas, but it’s “very much on-the-job training.” 

“With this curriculum, they will be rotated,” explained Robert Festinger, CGI’s senior managing director. “They will go through housekeeping, they will go through food and beverage, they will go to accounting, they will go through human resources.”

In doing so, students will gain exposure to all aspects of hospitality, some of which will better suit their personalities and interests. If students are more outgoing, for instance, they may prefer sales and marketing, whereas analytical, numbers-oriented students may find a passion for revenue management, said Thomas. 

“It’s great to have a theoretical textbook to guide you through the principles of hospitality management and so forth,” said Thomas, who compared the hotel to a teaching and learning center. “But having that hands-on practical experience while you’re gaining a theoretical knowledge … I think it’s going to be a game-changer.”

Ciacciarelli would agree. “I really enjoy the tangible aspects of [Project Destined’s] course and that you’re not just learning facts — and you’re not just learning concepts — but you’re also getting to hear industry leaders apply them to [the] real world,” she said. 

That practical component of real estate courses serves a purpose for both students and industry employers; students want to get jobs they’re prepared for, while commercial real estate wants to nurture — and hire — industry-ready talent. 

“The search for top diverse talent demands that we create new opportunities through active engagement and relationship building,” Sonny Kalsi, co-CEO of BGO, told CO via email. “The certificate program is a thoughtful approach that will fill learning gaps and equip hard-working students with the knowledge and skills to compete in an increasingly challenging job market.”

When applying for jobs, students can cite the classes they took with Project Destined, which comes with name recognition. Real estate companies know the Project Destined brand, so an associated course —and, soon enough, a certificate — yields a greater understanding and transparency about what, exactly, the student has learned. 

It’s for this reason that Bobo works with professors to build Project Destined’s syllabi — and then shares the syllabi back with the industry, asking how the course curriculum may help students get jobs at a given firm.

Students, however, are not the only ones to benefit from well-designed curricula. Since the pandemic, both finding talent and finding competent talent has been challenging, said Festinger, emphasizing “competent.” 

Preparing students for real estate careers at the university level can therefore make all the difference, as an industry-driven curriculum can tap into underrepresented pools of talent. Atlanta is a particular hub for hospitality, so the local market demand for talent already exists, said Thomas. He eventually hopes to educate high schoolers about the industry to further bring awareness to what hospitality really means. 

To ensure that CGI is achieving its goals to prepare students for the industry, Thomas plans to quantify the learning program’s success. By working with analytical firms to develop a set of key performance indicators, CGI will measure and track how many students go through the program, the impact they leave, where they ultimately work and so on. 

Of course, some students’ successes may be easier to monitor than others; Thomas wants to employ students at either CGI hotels or hotels through the company’s connections. “Every graduate that comes out of this program, we’re going to assist in finding a placement for them within our ecosystem of relationships,” he said. 

Bobo, likewise, sees a benefit from a talent perspective, which offers an incentive to Project Destined’s corporate partners. They’ll access screened, well-trained talent across a range of schools. 

This range will only continue to grow, as Bobo hopes to scale Project Destined’s certificate program nationally. For now, the curriculum will launch at the City University of New York, as well as HBCUs that include Howard University, Florida A&M University and Claflin University. Florida A&M already offers students college credit for taking a Project Destined course, whereas Lehman College eventually wants to offer a real estate minor via the curriculum. 

“Ultimately, it’s about: How can you add value to schools and to great companies?” said Bobo.

Anna Staropoli can be reached at astaropoli@commercialobserver.com.