Mitchell E. Hersh, Mack-Cali Realty Corp. >>>>>>>>>>>>>
Mitchell E. Hersh brought “broad experience” and one of “the
finest minds in the real estate business” (the other real estate
mind being that of William Mack) to the merged Mack-Cali
Realty Corp., then-CEO Thomas A. Rizk said in 1997. Since then,
Hersh has added the title of CEO to the presidency that he
assumed upon the merger of the Mack Co. with Cali Realty 14
years ago. For the Mack organization, Hersh was chief operating
officer, overseeing development, operations, leasing and acquisitions. At Mack-Cali, Hersh is responsible for the company’s strategic direction and long-term planning, as well as creating and
implementing its capital markets and overall investment strategies. Mack-Cali owns or has interests in 278 properties totaling
approximately 32. 4 million square feet, primarily office and
office/flex buildings in the Northeast.
Mark Higgins, Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers LLC >>>>>
As chief investment officer at Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers
LLC, Mark Higgins oversees Cornerstone’s direct equity invest-
ments in North American commercial properties, including
hotels. Higgins also chairs Cornerstone’s
investment committee and plays a key
role in creating and implementing
investment strategies on behalf of cli-
ents. Judging by the Hartford, CT-based
pension fund advisor’s activity in recent
months, he’s a busy man. In August
alone, Cornerstone acquired 795
Folsom St., an office property in San
Francisco, in a $70-million deal; paid
$55.6 million for the Reserve at Evanston
(IL), a 193-unit apartment complex;
and provided $43 million in mortgage
financing for the Hilton DFW Lakes
hotel and conference center in
Grapevine, TX. Earlier in 2011,
Cornerstone acquired 8750 N. Central Expressway in Dallas, also
known as Northpark Central, for $64.4 million and bought the his-
toric Algonquin Hotel in New York City for a reported $82 million.
investment committee and plays a key role in creating and implementing
u
’
e
Folsom St., an office property in San
Francisco, in a $70-million deal; paid
$55.6 million for the Reserve at Evanston
Jonathan Hipp, Calkain Cos. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Jonathan Hipp already had 20 years’ industry experience when
he launched Calkain Cos. with a two-person staff in early 2005.
Drawing on his brokerage acumen, Hipp hit the ground running, averaging a transaction per week at the outset. The net
lease specialist hasn’t let up the pace since then, opening four
additional offices and establishing five divisions: brokerage,
advisory, asset management, private equity and research. A frequently sought-after authority who produces a blog for GlobeSt.
com, Hipp literally wrote a book on the sector: he co-authored
The Little Book of Triple Net Lease Investing with David Sobelman,
published in 2010. This past summer, amid a busy season closing transactions, Calkain unveiled what is described as the
industry’s first net lease investment analysis tool,
www.NetLeaseCentral.com, an online portal.
Grace Huebscher, Beech Street Capital >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Grace Huebscher built on a 30-year track record in multifamily
financing, including a lengthy tenure at Fannie Mae, in establishing Beech Street Capital. While at
Fannie, Huebscher created the
GSE’s manufactured housing park
lending effort and built the multi-family small loan platform from
$400 million in the early 2000s to
a multibillion-dollar business. She
established Beech Street in late
2009, and the firm originated over
100 loans totaling $1 billion in its
first year; the figure is said to be a
record for an agency startup. In
February of this year, Beech Street
earned approval from the US
Department of Housing and
Urban Development as a
Multifamily Accelerated Processing
lender. The firm is on course to
exceed $2 billion of originations
in its second year.
When the Panama Canal opened up on Aug. 14, 1914, it changed travel and
trade forever. By opening up a link between
the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, it cut weeks
off of travel time between continents.
But ships have gotten bigger since then
and cargo traffic has increased tremendously
as the world becomes more globalized, and
the Panama Canal can no longer meet the
logistics market’s needs. As FORUM reporter
Robert Carr noted in a GlobeSt.com blog post
earlier this year, the 300 million tons of annual
cargo traffic that passes through the tunnel
today is more than four times what engineers
in the late 19th century estimated a canal
could effectively handle.
That will change on the 100th anniversary
of the Canal in 2014, upon the completion of a
A BIGGER PANAMA CANAL
massive expansion project that was approved
in 2006 and started in 2007. Also called the
Third Set of Locks Project, the $6-billion plan
will double the capacity of the Canal, making
the waterway both wider and deeper.
The expected impact on the country is considerable; when the plan was approved, then-president Martín Torrijos stated the Canal would
generate enough wealth to reduce Panama’s
poverty rate by 30% and make it a first-world
country. But the implications on a global scale
are even greater, since more travel will be possible between the world’s two largest oceans.
Stateside, the expansion is expected to gen-
erate demand for more industrial development
around key US port markets and change the
status quo between them. FORUM reader Gabriel
Silverstein, president of Angelic Real Estate in
New York City, commented that when the expan-
sion is complete, said “it could shift 25% or
more of the West Coast ports’ inbound, and even
outbound, container traffic to the East Coast,
aligning the receipt of goods with the largest
population density and avoiding 1,500 miles of
rail transport to get to their consumer base des-
tinations.” At the same time, demand should rise
in Middle America as the need for warehouses
and logistics/shipping facilities rises.
