January 29, 2024
New York YIMBY

Foundations Underway For COOKFOX’s 335 Eighth Avenue In Chelsea, Manhattan

Foundations are underway at 335 Eighth Avenue, the site of a seven-story mixed-use building in Chelsea, Manhattan. Designed by COOKFOX Architects and developed by MAG Partners and Penn South aka Mutual Redevelopment Houses, Inc., with financing provided by global holding company Safanad, the structure will span around 200,000 square feet and yield 188 rental units in studio to two-bedroom layouts, as well as a 23,000-square-foot Lidl supermarket and additional ground-floor retail space. Thirty percent of the homes will be reserved for affordable housing. Urban Atelier Group is the general contractor for the property, which is located at the corner of Eighth Avenue and West 26th Street within the Penn South affordable housing cooperative, officially known as Mutual Redevelopment Houses.

Demolition had just finished at the time of our last update in early October, when the plot sat cleared and awaiting the start of excavation. Since then, crews have already created various sections of the new reinforced concrete foundations around the eastern corner while excavators continue to unearth the remainder of the rectangular parcel. The superstructure could likely start to rise above street level in late spring to early summer.

Photo by Michael Young
Photo by Michael Young
Photo by Michael Young
Photo by Michael Young
Photo by Michael Young
Photo by Michael Young
Photo by Michael Young
Photo by Michael Young
Photo by Michael Young

A new rendering has also been released showing the eastern elevation. The building is depicted with a red brick envelope, a grid of recessed rectangular windows, and tall floor-to-ceiling windows for the retail frontage. The residential entrance sits beneath a canopy topped with shrubbery along Eighth Avenue, and dark metal railings line the expansive rooftop terrace.

Photo by Michael Young

The Lidl supermarket will feature a bakery, fresh produce, a floral shop, meat and seafood, and other typical everyday essentials. The store will be the German company’s second outpost in Manhattan following a Harlem location at 2187 Frederick Douglass Boulevard that opened in February 2022. YIMBY last reported that Lidl is expected to work with Hire NYC to offer employment to local residents and provide comprehensive benefits such as healthcare for all full- and part-time employees, regardless of hours worked per week.

Ninety percent of the units will be studios and one-bedrooms, and the remaining 10 percent will be two-bedroom apartments. Residential amenities at 335 Eighth Avenue will include a fitness center, library, media lounge, coworking lounge with private workspaces, a dining area with a catering kitchen, and rooftop gardens with dining areas and a grilling terrace.

In recent news, JLL Capital Markets arranged a $151.4 million capitalization for the project with financing secured from Bank OZK and MetLife Investment Management. The property is a short walk from the local C and E trains at the 23rd Street station to the south.

335 Eighth Avenue’s anticipated completion date is slated for the third quarter of 2025.



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December 1, 2023

MAG Partners and Safanad Form Joint Venture with Global Holdings to Capitalize $200M Development at 300 E. 50th Street

JV secures $95M construction financing from Bank OZK for luxury 23-story residential tower set to open in Turtle Bay in 2025

NEW YORK, Nov. 30, 2023 – MAG Partners and Safanad announced today the formation of a joint venture with Global Holdings, the international real estate development and investment firm led by Chairman and Founder Eyal Ofer, to capitalize 300 East 50th Street. The JV also announced that it has closed on a $95 million construction loan with Bank OZK for the 194-unit, 23-story, luxury mixed-use development now under construction in the Turtle Bay neighborhood of Manhattan.

“300 E. 50th Street is the perfect addition to our growing New York City luxury residential portfolio,” said Eyal Ofer, Chairman of Global Holdings Group. “Anagram Columbus Circle proved the demand for condo-quality rental housing in New York, and this project is another opportunity to bring experience from our pioneering condo developments like 15 Central Park West and the Greenwich Lane to the multifamily market.”

The investment caps a productive year for Global Holdings in the residential space, including the opening of Anagram Columbus Circle, stabilization of Anagram NoMad, acquisition of 51 Irving Place, and record-breaking condo sales at the Novus in Durham, North Carolina.  

“The capitalization of 300 E. 50th Street with a partner like Global Holdings is another massive milestone and proof point for our multi-family approach,” said MaryAnne Gilmartin, CEO & Founder of MAG Partners. “Building on the launch of leasing at our Ruby development in Chelsea and the groundbreaking of 335 8th Avenue earlier this year, we are excited to deliver this beautifully designed addition to the neighborhood.”

MAG Partners and Safanad previously formed a joint venture to acquire properties and sites in the New York metropolitan area as co-general partners, including 300 E. 50th Street.

“Safanad is proud of the partnership’s work to capitalize the 50th Street deal in the face of an extremely challenging capital markets environment,” said Danny Jumblatt, Managing Director at Safanad. “We are confident in the project’s success given the continued robust demand for new rental product in Manhattan and the favorable supply backdrop given the expiration of the 421A program.”

Located on the southeast corner of 50th Street and Second Avenue, 300 East 50th St. will feature 142,290 square feet of luxury residential space and 4,888 square feet of commercial retail space. As part of the Affordable New York program, 30 percent of the units in the building will be affordable to low- and middle-income New Yorkers.

300 East 50th St. will offer an elevated lifestyle featuring a unit mix that includes studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom units. Designed by BKSK Architects, the property will offer a robust amenity program with an emphasis on health and wellness. It will feature a courtyard and rooftop garden, a co-working lounge with meeting rooms, social lounge with a catering kitchen, fitness center, grilling terrace, pet spa and bike and tenant storage.

JLL helped secure both the equity and construction financing for the project. JLL’s Capital Markets Debt Advisory team was led by Managing Director Geoff Goldstein and Senior Directors Jillian Mariutti and Stephen Van Leer. The Sales and Equity Placement team included Senior Managing Directors Rob Hinckley and Jeff Julien and Director Nicco Lupo. The deal was led by Jeff Rosen, Principal, and Adam Freindlich, Vice President, of MAG Partners. The site assemblage was originated by Krown Capital and KRW Realty.

About MAG Partners

MAG Partners is a New York City based, woman-owned, urban real estate company with decades of experience developing in the New York City area. Collectively, the MAG Team has developed nearly 3,520 housing units and over 14.7 million square feet of office, residential and mixed-use assets. MAG Partners currently has nearly 1,000 units of multi-family development under the Affordable New York program in Manhattan today. In addition to 300 East 50th Street, Ruby, a 480-unit luxury building in Chelsea designed by COOKFOX, began leasing in late March to strong demand. Earlier this fall, construction began on 335 8th Avenue, a 188-unit mixed-income residential building with a Lidl grocery store.

About Global Holdings Management Group

Global Holdings Management Group is an international alliance of real estate asset management and investment advisory companies operating across the United States, United Kingdom and Europe. It exclusively develops, advises and manages the real estate assets of Global Holdings Group – which is led and founded by its Chairman Eyal Ofer – across its residential, commercial and hotel portfolios in these geographies. The current portfolio consists of over 10 million square feet of real estate, comprising over 120 properties and 1,500 hotel rooms.

About Safanad

Founded in 2009, Safanad is a global holding company combining investment and operational excellence. We developdeep conviction behind investment sectors that have strong macroeconomic tailwinds, build powerful operating platforms to capitalize on these opportunities, and realize the greatest value from this expertise through organic growth and acquisitions over time. Safanad invests in impact, with platforms in Education, Healthcare, Digital Infrastructure, and Real Estate. From offices in New York, London, Riyadh, and Dubai, the firm’s c. 40 professionals have completed more than 40 transactions totalling $10 billion. For more information, please visit www.safanad.com

Global Holdings Media Contact:

[email protected]

MAG Partners Media Contact:

Ashley Cotton

[email protected]

December 1, 2023
Commercial Observer

Global Holdings Joins MAG Partners, Safanad in $200M Luxury Resi Development

Bank OZK is providing $95 million in construction financing for the deal

MAG Partners and Safanad have formed a joint venture with Global Holdings Group to capitalize their new 23-story, 194-unit, mixed-use luxury residential development at 300 East 50th Street in the Turtle Bay neighborhood of Midtown Manhattan, Commercial Observer has learned.  

Bank OZK (OZK) provided a $95 million construction loan for the $200 million development.

JLL Capital Markets secured both the equity and construction financing for the deal. The JLL debt advisory team was led by Geoff Goldstein and Jillian Mariutti, and Stephen Van Leer. The JLL sales and equity team was led by Rob Hinckley and Jeff Julien and Nicco Lupo

MaryAnne Gilmartin, CEO and founder of MAG Partners, noted that the deal builds on two other multifamily projects her firm has recently developed in Manhattan: 243 West 28th Street, which launched leasing in March, and 335 Eighth Avenue, which broke ground in October. 

“The capitalization of 300 East 50th Street with a partner like Global Holdings is another massive milestone and proof point for our multifamily approach,” said Gilmartin in a statement. “We are excited to deliver this beautifully designed addition to the neighborhood.” 

Eyal Ofer, chairman of Global Holdings Group, called 300 East 50th Street “the perfect addition” to the firm’s growing portfolio of luxury, condo-quality rental housing in Manhattan, which includes Anagram Columbus Circle, a Columbus Circle development that opened leasing in July. 

“This project is another opportunity to bring experience from our pioneering condo developments like 15 Central Park West and the Greenwich Lane to the multifamily market,”  Ofer said in a statement. 

The new development will sit in the affluent Turtle Bay neighborhood of Midtown Manhattan, a small hamlet of mid-20th century buildings just off the East River and near the Queensboro Bridge. 

300 East 50th will feature more than 142,000 square feet of residential space across nearly 200 units and include approximately 4,888 square feet of retail space. Unit sizes will range from one- to three-bedroom apartments, while building amenities will include a courtyard, a rooftop garden, a coworking lounge, a fitness center, a pet spa and individual tenant storage. 

This is yet another deal between MAG Partners and Safanad, companies that had previously formed a joint venture agreement centered around New York metropolitan area acquisitions. The project is also one of the last in the city to be developed using the Affordable New York tax incentive program, more commonly known as 421a. 

Affordable New York requires at least 30 percent of units in a new development be affordable for low- to middle-income New Yorkers.  

“Safanad is proud of the partnership’s work to capitalize the 50th Street deal in the face of an extremely challenging capital markets environment,” said Danny Jumblatt, managing director, Safanad, in a statement. “We are confident in the project’s success given the continued robust demand for new rental product in Manhattan and the favorable supply backdrop given the expiration of the 421a program.”

Construction is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2025. 



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October 26, 2023
The Balimore Banner

Baltimore native Pinky Cole finally brings Slutty Vegan home: ‘I was always a winner’

Slutty Vegan founder Pinky Cole announced Thursday that she is opening a location at Baltimore Peninsula. (Kylie Cooper/The Baltimore Banner)

No one is less surprised by the success of the growing plant-based food chain and soon-to-be main attraction for the new Baltimore Peninsula neighborhood than its founder: Baltimore native Pinky Cole.

Slutty Vegan, her restaurant, as well as its companion Bar Vegan, is scheduled to open in the Rye Street Market, a boutique office space within the Baltimore Peninsula neighborhood (formerly known as Port Covington). It joins the company’s other eateries in Georgia, Texas, Alabama and New York.

She sat down with The Baltimore Banner on Thursday, clutching the baby bump protruding from her satin leopard dress, to discuss the announcement before a news conference featuring a performance from Morgan State University’s marching band and remarks from Mayor Brandon Scott. Behind her lay at least a dozen untouched copies of her “I Hope You Fail” memoir. Its early October release had prompted a Wednesday visit to “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” which, Cole noted, was not her first time as a guest there.

Slutty Vegan’s success left many at the event inspired, including one resident who walked up to Cole crying Thursday to express his gratitude, she said. Some have called her a “young Oprah,” according to Cole — a comparison she’s never shied away from.

“I knew as a kid that I was going to be great in the world,” said Cole, 35. “I was always a winner. I always had a winning mentality and that didn’t die.”

Pinky Cole cries while talking about Baltimore’s impact on her life as Mayor Brandon Scott and Councilwoman Phylicia Porter look on at an event for Slutty Vegan on Thursday. (Kylie Cooper/The Baltimore Banner)
Slutty Vegan’s “Sloppy Toppy” burger is topped with jalapeños, vegan cheese, onions, lettuce, tomato and “Slut Sauce.” (Kylie Cooper/The Baltimore Banner)

Cole’s business, now valued around $100 million, was built on her flair for the theatrical. Growing up on Cedonia Avenue in East Baltimore, she learned about stocks and business practices from her father, who had been incarcerated during her childhood.

The only person able to compete with Cole for the spotlight was her mother, the lead singer of a local reggae band called Strikers Posse. Ichelle Cole, a native of Jamaica, spent nights center stage in locs that touched the floor, singing and playing “nearly every instrument,” according to her daughter.

When the Posse went to Ocean City, so did Cole. She often joined her mother in the spotlight.

“I would see these crowds of people and I saw how many people loved my mother and I’m like, ‘I want people to love me like that, too,’” Cole said.

She took on her mother’s Rastafarian diet of fresh produce and some fish. But by 2007, Cole cut out meat entirely. She cooked vegan food for her friends, though Cole is the first to admit she was never a chef. In her early 20s, she used the money she made working as a television producer on the Maury Povich show to start a bubblegum pink-painted, Jamaican-inspired storefront in Harlem, New York.

About a year after opening in 2015, the restaurant burned down in a grease fire.

“People never talk about failure,” Cole said. “It’s inevitable. Like, life happens. … And I want people to know you don’t have to wallow in negativity.”

Success came for Cole in 2020, when she capitalized on her love of a plant-based diet and created the first iteration of Slutty Vegan, which she called a “merge between the two most pleasurable experiences in life: sex and food.”

Interested converts could choose plant-based burgers slathered in the usual condiments and vegan cheese, otherwise known as a “Sloppy Toppy,” or sandwiches like the “Hollywood Hooker,” a seductive twist on a classic Philly cheesesteak.

“I knew I had to get people dialed in, so that they can spark a dialogue and start to ask questions. And if I can get people to ask questions, that means that I can educate them on whatever it is I want to teach them,” she said.

And that was vegan food. She got pushback in the beginning, she said, but saw her business spurring conversation about the way customers eat and respond to marketing.

Slutty Vegan founder Pinky Cole’s necklace gets straight to the point. (Kylie Cooper/The Baltimore Banner)

Whispers of Cole’s return to Charm City have hung over the Baltimore food world since the company’s infancy. In December 2022, Cole said she’s “gotta come back home” in an interview recorded with the radio station 92Q. In March of the following year, she tested the Chesapeake Bay waters with a pop-up store at Hampden’s Whitehall Mill. Lines of hungry people wrapped around the building.

“Who knows, if we run out of burgers we may just have to open a location here,” she previously said in an interview with The Baltimore Sun.

Cole said she remains optimistic about the growth of her Slutty Vegan chain despite a volatile year in the restaurant and vegan food industry.

She told The Baltimore Banner her business recently won a bid to open a location in the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the busiest airport in the country by passenger traffic. Slutty Vegan is also looking into licensing the brand overseas.

“My husband … he’ll be the guinea pig,” she said of Derrick Hayes, founder and CEO of Big Dave’s Cheesesteaks.

”But right now, the main focus is the Baltimore Peninsula,” Cole said. She indicated that plans to move into Northwood Commons, which previously listed Slutty Vegan as one of their new tenants over Instagram, were not currently in the works.

”I like new things. I like new fresh things,” she said. “There’s a big opportunity to be able to drive a new audience to this area.”

Cole said another draw was learning that more than half the employees hired to work on the Baltimore Peninsula’s $5.5 million development effort would be Baltimore residents.

MaryAnne Gilmartin, founder of MAG Partners, a New York firm leading the project, said Cole’s arrival as the anchor tenant in Rye Street Market will help drive traffic to the neighborhood.

According to Gilmartin, developers are expecting more residents and local businesses to move in after Cole, including a potential grocer; there is no grocery store within the community’s largely industrial 235 square acres.

Multiple commercial tenants, including Nick’s Fish House, City Garage and the planned reopening of the Rye Street Tavern, which was announced as a new branch of the Clyde’s Restaurant Group in May, have already made a home there.

“This is about real people, making real impact and delivering real change and lifting up entire communities,” Gilmartin said. “[Pinky Cole] is the embodiment of what this project represents.”



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October 24, 2023
The Baltimore Banner

In what could be a Baltimore first, communities and developer are partnering in South Baltimore

The coalition has formed a nonprofit that is in charge of overseeing how a momentous volume of funding gets spent in South Baltimore.

Views of CSX facilities scene from the Curtis Bay neighborhood in Baltimore, Thursday, August 3, 2023. (Jessica Gallagher/The Baltimore Banner)

Growing up in South Baltimore, Michael Middleton became accustomed to the invisible barriers separating his neighborhood from the next one over. Those imaginary lines, he recalled, meant that Cherry Hill and Brooklyn neighbors shared little in common besides geography.

Now retired, Middleton said something extraordinary has happened to those walls over the last few years. Six South Baltimore communities, wary of development north of the Patapsco River’s Middle Branch, joined forces nearly a decade ago and turned a page. Together, they and the developers leading Port Covington’s revival have built relationships, convened to discuss shared problems and formed a nonprofit organization and board to handle a momentous influx of money they can put to use in their communities however they see fit.

The nonprofit, SB7 Coalition Inc. — representing Cherry Hill, Brooklyn, Mount Winans, Lakeland, Westport, Curtis Bay and their Baltimore Peninsula partners — is set to receive more than $20 million by 2026. With that historic investment, the nonprofit organization and the residents it serves are tasked with something both novel and daunting: using the money to fill in the gaps left behind by generations of neglect.

The needs in the six communities are varied and vast, ranging from dire environmental threats to an over concentration of vacant and abandoned housing. And now, representatives across six very different neighborhoods — many of them volunteers or brand new to grant writing, community organizing and managing large sums of social-impact funds — say they are starting to see the first fruits of their efforts bloom.

“For decades, the communities really didn’t have much to do with one another. The most significant thing that has happened is that we have come together now,” said Middleton, a former poverty law attorney who now leads the South Baltimore nonprofit organization. “And the six communities recognize that we have more in common than we have differences.”

The ways by which the funding is divided, allocated and spent are complex: The coalition has devised a multi-tier system that appropriates some of the money for individual community organizations in each neighborhood; some for broad priorities such as transportation, public safety and education; and some for recipients whose work directly impacts the South Baltimore area.

Middleton, who formerly led the Cherry Hill Community Coalition, is first to acknowledge that the $20 million investment can only go so far.

But it’s a start, he said, that can set these communities up to be more prosperous and effective in the long run. And for what could be the first time in the city’s history, a private developer and a group of community members are banding together to see the work through.

Greg Sawtell, Chenire Carter, Michael Middleton, Ashley Cotton and Lindsay Staton pose for a portrait outside of the SB7 coalition’s future office space in Baltimore, Friday, Sept. 29, 2023. (Jessica Gallagher/The Baltimore Banner)

A long-term commitment to South Baltimore communities

The six communities once housed the workforces of South Baltimore’s industrial past. Over the last few decades, fueled by manufacturing’s exodus, the community demographics have changed. And from 2010 to 2020 alone, the population decreased by about 5%, city Department of Planning data shows. The Latino population more than doubled over that same period.

A mass shooting in Brooklyn in July that killed two young people and wounded more than two dozen others resurfaced long-held concerns of institutional neglect in the southernmost tip of the city. In the aftermath, City Council President Nick J. Mosby accused Baltimore Police officers and other city agency leaders of providing lower-quality services to these neighborhoods than to the more affluent communities on north of the Hanover Street Bridge.

And now, the first Baltimore Peninsula residential and office tenants are trickling in. The more than $5.5 billion project — funded partly with some $660 million in tax-increment financing from the city, the largest such package to date — is expected to bring millions of square feet of office, retail, residential and public park space spanning 235 acres of mostly barren and industrial waterfront land. It will contain the new headquarters of sports apparel giant Under Armour, whose founder, Kevin Plank, began buying up the land about a decade ago.

SB7 was formed largely as a response to skepticism about what effect a project of this scope and scale would have on its residential neighbors. Though it involves no direct displacement of businesses or residents, some neighborhood leaders have raised concerns about being priced out of their homes, excluded from incoming investment and ignored in favor of a new “mini-city.”

While some of these concerns still exist, those involved in the nonprofit’s work say they are building lines of communication, collaboration and change that they have long gone without.

“So many things are starting to get attention — multi-decade-long priorities that didn’t get done because there were no resources,” said Greg Sawtell, an SB7 board member and co-president of the Curtis Bay Association. “The outcomes aren’t there yet, but it’s a process. The structure is there.”

At the center of the community benefits agreement is a multimillion-dollar commitment to the six neighborhoods from Sagamore Development Co., Plank’s development arm. That includes a direct $10 million disbursement over the first five years and a commitment from Sagamore Ventures to help the coalition raise another $10 million over the following five years, according to the 2016 agreement.

The deal also includes a requirement from Sagamore and the other Baltimore Peninsula developers to contribute funds from a portion of every new lease signed to SB7 — a minimum of 15 cents per net square foot — and a portion of every transfer fee per property sale. Sagamore Ventures has also donated $1 million to Baltimore’s CollegeBound Foundation and $1 million to Partners in Excellence for local students’ scholarships.

How has the rest of the money been spent so far?

The 10-page agreement does not dictate how the community entities or the SB7 nonprofit should use the funds, but it does offer a list of short- and long-term priorities that the coalition should address over the next 30 years. They include one-time expenditures on items such as athletic fields and community centers, and it gives examples of needs such as cemetery maintenance, funding for youth development and recreational programming.

“They know what they want in their communities, but may need guidance and/or resources to bring their aspirations to fruition,” said Marc Weller, the president and founding partner of Weller Development Partners, who led development of the project’s first phase. Weller’s team served as advisers to the group from 2016 until 2022, when a new development team, MAG Partners, took the reins.

“It was purposely designed that way so that they could control their own destiny, future, and decisions,” he added. “Our philosophy has always emphasized the importance of community interaction, and frankly, it is just the right way to do business.”

Mark Pollak, a partner at Ballard Spahr LLP who represents the Baltimore Peninsula developers and helped negotiate the 2016 agreement, said the coalition may well be the first of its kind in Baltimore.

“There were no models from which we took our ideas from,” he said in an email. “We believe the partnership is a successful model that represents what can happen when the City and a development team believe in the ability of a project, in collaboration with community members, to deliver unprecedented benefits to the City.”

How they’ll pick projects

The structure through which money flows to communities is a complicated one — so much so that, during an interview with reporters earlier this year, SB7 board members — including representatives from MAG Partners — came prepared with thick, stapled packets of paper they could refer to.

Here’s how it works: To start, each of the six community organizations receives $200,000 apiece to help them grow. The money might be used to secure designated meeting space, add paid staff or apply for nonprofit status.

On another tier of the funding system, six committees — devoted to organizing around solutions for education, public safety, quality of life/zero waste, transportation, economic development and community land trust — can propose projects that can have impact in at least two or more of the six communities. Those proposals must address concerns laid out in SB7′s strategic plan and are reviewed by committees, the nonprofit’s appropriations committee and then the board for approval.

And finally, community association review panels can award grants of up to $2,500 at a time to individuals or organizations already active in the area to further their work or fund new projects. These recipients include the Black Yield Institute, the Baltimore Compost Collective and the South Baltimore Community Land Trust. Each community receives $50,000 to spend.

Coalition members said they rely on their communities to identify challenges they face and how to solve them. But not everyone always agrees on every expenditure and priority,which can spark debate and occasional infighting, the SB7 representatives said.

“I don’t think you’re going to find authentic governance without potential conflict, and it’s that process that gets to some of our best outcomes,” said Sawtell of the Curtis Bay Association.

‘It’s a lot of money’

Out in the communities, SB7 members say their work touches upon a spectrum of needs identified in their neighborhoods: cleaning and greening, older adult programming, health and wellness.

For example, some of the funds have gone toward commemorating a 100-year-old firehouse in Curtis Bay and helping the Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter with chipping and vaccination services in Brooklyn and Cherry Hill.

Community members also said the larger community grant awards, meanwhile, have presented new opportunities to collaborate on projects and ideas.

One such proposal — a transportation initiative — is funding church vans that can be used by the South Baltimore nonprofit City of Refuge to shuttle residents around who may not have other modes of transit available. Another allowed the SB7 nonprofit to purchase a former Brooklyn dental clinic that will be converted into community meeting space.

The South Baltimore Environmental Justice Collaborative is another such combination of efforts. Students Carlos Sanchez, Taysia Thompson and Vilma Gutierrez are on a small team that’s collecting data that tracks environmental outcomes for neighborhoods close to the CSX Coal Terminal in Curtis Bay, where methane gas that built up in a tunnel exploded in Dec. 2021.

“We’re the next up-and-coming generation to fix the problem that’s been broken for many years,” Thompson said.

From left: Taysia Thompson, Vilma Gutierrez and Carlos Sanchez pose for a portrait outside of the CSX Facility in Curtis Bay on Aug. 4, 2023. (Ulysses Muñoz/The Baltimore Banner)

LETS GO Boys and Girls, a nonprofit that promotes equitable access to STEM learning, was given a grant to provide coaching, training, mentoring and materials in Westport, Cherry Hill, Brooklyn and Lakeland.

In Brooklyn, funds to strengthen the community association still haven’t been distributed, but that’s because Concerned Citizens for a Better Brooklyn is solidifying its budget. Andrea Mayer, co-chair of Concerned Citizens for a Better Brooklyn, said they’ve changed the budget a few times as they’ve decided on different programs and partnerships they want to pursue in the community.

“We were struggling because it’s a lot of money and we wanted to be wise in how we spend it,” Mayer said. She said they’re considering hiring staff to help run the community association.

In Mount Winans, Angela Smothers, president of the community association, surveyed residents door to door in 2021. There were two consistent asks, she said: a community center and more activities for seniors and kids. She plans on using funds for a playground, walking trails and exercise equipment on South Paca Street.

“As opposed to saying, ‘This is what I want or this is what we need,’ I asked, what would be the thing they’d like to see happen?” Smothers said. “They were losing interest because it has been so long, promises that were made were ignored.”

For Keisha Allen, the Westport Neighborhood Association president and chairperson of the Westport Community Development Corporation, a benefit of the SB7 funds is its flexibility to be infused into existing projects. The Westport CDC, for example, owns 17 houses that will eventually be transformed into affordable housing units, and SB7 money is augmenting that work.

Other coalition funds are supporting Westport’s “green ambassador” program, which pays people to take on beautification work such as trash pickup, lawn mowing and tree pruning, she said.

Allen, who recalled feeling skeptical about the plans for Baltimore Peninsula initially, said her feelings have warmed and softened over time.

“We’re no dummies; we saw a threat, and we saw what could happen,” she said about the coalition forming. “It was making sure we weren’t being mistreated or pushed out of our homes.”

Allen said she has high hopes, especially about the brick-and-mortar headquarters in Brooklyn that coalition members will be able to use for meetings, classes and other in-person gatherings. She thinks the physical space could inspire younger people to get involved and make connections. And maybe, she said, it will attract more visits and attention about the coalition’s groundbreaking work.

“Look at what we did, and how we came about, and what we’re doing,” she said. “I don’t see the same enthusiasm in the same way they get enthusiastic about things in other parts of the city.”



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May 8, 2023
Commercial Observer

Lidl to Open New 23K SF Grocery Store in Chelsea

A new Lidl grocery store is headed to 335 Eighth Avenue and it’s anything but little, Commercial Observer has learned. 

Lidl inked a 15-year deal for 23,000 square feet at the base of the affordable housing development between West 26th and West 27th streets, according to developer MAG Partners.

Asking rents were $150 per square foot on the ground floor and $65 per square foot in the basement, according to landlord broker Cushman & Wakefield. The new outpost — set to open in 2025 — will be Germany-based Lidl’s second in Manhattan, after it debuted in Harlem at 2187 Frederick Douglass Boulevard in February 2021. 

Lidl also has locations in Staten Island and Queens and plans to “open even more stores” in the next few years, including a Brooklyn outpostOr Raitses, senior director of real estate for Lidl’s New York region, said in a statement.

As part of MAG’s deal with 335 Eighth’s owner — the board of the neighboring housing cooperative — to build the 188-unit residential building, it was required to find a low-cost supermarket for the retail space, and Lidl fit the bill, according to MAG.

“Lidl shares our commitment to the greater Chelsea community and will bring excellent service and products to this neighborhood,” MaryAnne Gilmartin, founder and CEO of MAG, said in a statement. 

MAG will break ground on the seven-story project this month, demolishing the existing retail building previously occupied by a McDonald’s, a Gristedes supermarket and restaurant Taco Bandito.

CBRE’s Stephen SjursetDavid LaPierreRobert Bonicoro and Duane Davis brokered the deal for Lidl while Alan SchmerzlerSean MoranCatherine Merck and Patrick O’Rourke of C&W represented MAG. A spokesperson from CBRE declined to comment.

Celia Young can be reached at [email protected].



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April 27, 2023
The Baltimore Sun

Baltimore Peninsula begins transformation from construction site to community

Baltimore Peninsula, the once-industrial South Baltimore waterfront that’s being redeveloped, has turned the corner from longtime construction site to emerging community.

The first phase of the 235-acre project south of Interstate 95 has nearly completed streets, landscaped courtyards and a park with a children’s playground underway. It’s made up of two apartment buildings, now 15% and 10% leased, the Roost hotel, an office building that will be half-filled by CFG Bank and another where 125-year-old design firm H. Chambers Co. moved with 30 workers.

“These are no longer stories or part of a great vision of Kevin Plank. They’re no longer lines on paper,” said MaryAnne Gilmartin, one of the developers and founder and CEO of New York-based MAG Partners. “They’re no longer part of a massive construction and infrastructure undertaking. This is a real place.”

Gilmartin’s firm, along with San Francisco-based MacFarlane Partners, took over the then-partially built project a year ago as lead developer and investor with owners Sagamore Ventures and Goldman Sachs. Plank, the founder of Under Armour who heads the Sagamore investment firm, spearheaded the project nearly a decade ago, buying up land for redevelopment.

Part of the land Plank acquired is being developed in a separate project across East Cromwell Street as a new global headquarters for the Baltimore-based athletic apparel brand. It’s slated to open in the last three months of next year, with 1,500 workers, a flagship retail store and a multipurpose field.

Gilmartin spoke about Baltimore Peninsula during a media tour Wednesday to offer an initial glimpse of new buildings since the first occupants moved in.

A handful of residents first moved in last month to the project’s midrise, upscale apartments. Workers for H. Chambers — the first commercial tenant — have settled into hybrid schedules in an office building with outdoor terraces and a fitness center.

The developers are working on signing street-level retailers, and a sign just went up on one building for a Roost extended stay hotel, expected to open this summer.

Gilmartin predicted that by the time Under Armour’s new corporate campus opens at the end of 2024, the apartments will be close to 90% leased, while the commercial portion will be between 70% to 75% leased.

MAG Partners founder & CEO MaryAnne Gilmartin, one of the Baltimore Peninsula developers, leads a media tour of the project Wednesday. Residential leasing started in February in the two apartment buildings, and the first residents have moved in. The H. Chambers Co. has officially relocated to its new headquarters in one of the office buildings. (Kenneth K. Lam/Baltimore Sun)

Despite a difficult housing market, high interest rates and high office vacancies in parts of Baltimore, including downtown, Gilmartin said she has reason to be optimistic.

For one, she believes economic conditions will improve by next year. Demand for housing in Baltimore, she said, remains strong. And she sees opportunity in the office market that Baltimore Peninsula can tap into, especially in a post-pandemic work world where she believes more people will return to offices as part of hybrid schedules and where fewer office buildings will be able to be built.

Bob Hickman, chairman of H. Chambers, which has been in the city for more than a century, said Wednesday that the firm needed space suited to a hybrid remote and work-from-office schedule that would be inviting for employees. The firm looked in Towson, Columbia, Annapolis and Baltimore. Besides offering a central location for employees, Baltimore Peninsula offered a “forward thinking and inclusive” spot, he said.

“We needed a much more collaborative kind of space,” Hickman said. “We needed something that really brings the outdoors in.”

Gilmartin said she expects office users to be attracted from outside the city with offerings such as build-to-suit options and short-term leases, both of which can be hard to find, and more efficient space for those looking to downsize.

Ryan Watts, general manager of Bozzuto Management, shows off an apartment at the Baltimore Peninsula
Ryan Watts, general manager of Bozzuto Management, shows off an apartment at the Baltimore Peninsula project. (Kenneth K. Lam/Baltimore Sun)

In many ways, this project allows the real estate community in Baltimore to redefine what it means to go to work every day,” she said.

Gilmartin also said she hopes to see Baltimore Peninsula connected to, rather than divided from, the rest of the city and said developers are working on a long-term plan with state and federal highway officials to come up with alternative configurations for the nearby ramps onto and off I-95.

MAG Partners founder and CEO MaryAnne Gilmartin, lower right, one of the Baltimore Peninsula developers, leads a media tour Wednesday down the signature staircase at the H. Chambers Co. headquarters.
MAG Partners founder and CEO MaryAnne Gilmartin, lower right, one of the Baltimore Peninsula developers, leads a media tour Wednesday down the signature staircase at the H. Chambers Co. headquarters. (Kenneth K. Lam/Baltimore Sun)

Looking to the future, she said residents will continue to want homes in work-play-live environments, including Washington commuters who may work more days at home.

She believes the project will be well-suited to meet demand from Baltimore’s medical and research sectors as well as the film industry, which she said is recession-proof, offers good jobs and requires access to highways and large spaces.

“I think the film industry could have a place here at Baltimore Peninsula, and we’re exploring that,” she said.

And eventually she envisions building a large-scale entertainment or sports venue that would draw large numbers of people, one that might even justify a hotel and conference center.

“We need Baltimore to be on everybody’s radar,” Gilmartin said. And when it comes to businesses and residents looking to relocate, “we need it to be on the short list.”



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April 26, 2023
Bisnow

Baltimore Peninsula Developer Leans Into Flexible Office, Considers Building Entertainment Venue

As the 235-acre Baltimore Peninsula megaproject marches toward the completion of its most extensive building phase yet, the development team has embraced agility as a key to negotiating the obstacles working against the $5.5B project.

That flexibility is reflected in lead developer MAG Partners adopting measures like pre-built office space to boost leasing or potentially constructing a new entertainment venue that could draw visitors and spur hotel demand. 

“We tend to think about the possibilities and to know how to pivot and be nimble,” MAG Partners CEO MaryAnne Gilmartin said during a tour of the project Wednesday. “That really separates the mediocre from the good.”

As she walked through the waterfront development’s almost completed Chapter 1B portion, which totals nearly 1.1M SF of office, residential and retail, Gilmartin detailed how her team has responded to headwinds since taking over as lead developer roughly a year ago.

Baltimore’s sagging office market presented arguably the most significant challenge to the development, which includes a considerable amount of office space. 

The office market has gone through a tumultuous period as more companies have allowed employees to work from home. In the first quarter, Baltimore’s office market vacancy hit a new record high above 18% after leasing activity dropped about 50% from the fourth quarter, according to CBRE‘s Q1 market report.

With office leasing lagging in the market and MAG Partners set to deliver a glut of new space, the developer explored measures to boost the project’s attractiveness to more tenants. 

Those measures include offering short-term leases, designing a pre-built office pilot program, and potentially converting office to lab space in the wake of the plummeting demand for office space.

“It’s been slow, but the world is coming back, and we think … that hybrid work is here to stay,” Gilmartin said.

Bisnow/Adam Bednar

Bisnow/Adam Bednar

Space in Rye Street Market that may end up pre-built offices or even lab space.

MAG Partners has identified pre-built office space — a concept where the landlord builds out, partitions, carpets and readies the space for occupancy — as a sector with the potential to attract tenants amid the Baltimore office market’s struggles.

She said Baltimore’s office market comprises about 14M SF of Class-A and Class-B space. However, she estimated only 10K SF of pre-built product is available in Baltimore. 

MAG Partners plans to offer roughly 6K SF of pre-built office space in its Rye Street Market building, featuring designed units between 1,800 SF and 2,700 SF.    

“I’m doing it as a pilot that I think is going to be very popular,” Gilmartin said. 

MAG Partners also plans to offer tenants short-term leases of two to three years. Generally, the shortest lease offered on office space is five years, with 10-year leases the most common deals.

“The world is still evolving in the post-Covid condition,” she said. “We’re offering short-term leases, we are building out the space, which capital is precious today. So, the idea that a company not in the real estate business doesn’t have to get into the business of building their own space is also an enormous benefit.”

Most innovative approaches to boosting office leasing are confined to the Rye Street Market building, which landed Baltimore Peninsula’s first office lease when interior design and architecture firm Chambers signed a 10-year lease for roughly 9K SF of the building’s 228K SF of office space in September. 

Robert Hickman, Chambers’ board chairman, said the development team’s vision for Rye Street Market as a home for smaller and emerging businesses fits well with the firm’s goals.

Bisnow/Adam Bednar

Chambers Chairman of the Board Robert Hinkman stands outside his firm’s office at Rye Street Market.

“We don’t want to be a huge company. We want to be a niche company,” Hickman said.

Given the demand for lab space in Baltimore, Gilmartin said the development team is also “experimenting” with turning office space at Rye Street Market into lab space. However, she said, that doesn’t mean converting the building to wet lab space that requires substantial infrastructure investment. 

“It could be places for scientists and researchers to get together where they’re trying new technologies and innovations in the life science, space or bioscience space,” she said. “But we have the building here, and we’ve done the research, and we believe that we should dedicate a portion of this building to lab space.”

MAG Partners still needs to decide what the next construction phase will include once it has fully delivered Chapter 1B and various infrastructure and park projects by the end of this year.

Gilmartin said one possibility is to build a large public venue that attracts enough people to justify building a hotel and conference center on the property. 

“This idea of there being a large-scale entertainment venue available here, whether it’s sports, culture, entertainment, we have inbounds that suggest that if we thought we’d pull it off, meaning that we could have a meeting of the minds, we could build a large-scale venue,” Gilmartin said.



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March 29, 2023
Baltimore Business Journal

Three Baltimore-area CEOs selected for national list of leading businesswomen

Three Baltimore-area CEOs have been named to the inaugural Bizwomen 100, the first national listing of women who are making an impact in their local business communities.



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March 23, 2023
Real Estate In-Depth

Five Questions With: MaryAnne Gilmartin Founder & CEO, MAG Partners

When Real Estate In-Depth pondered who would be the candidate for the Five Questions feature for Women’s Month, the logical choice was MaryAnne Gilmartin.

Her background in real estate as she tells it almost began by happenstance, but her hard work has led her to found her own New York City-based real estate development firm—MAG Partners—in 2020 that in a short time has built a $1-billion pipeline.

The Fordham University graduate (undergraduate and graduate degree) began her career with the New York City Public Development Agency (the predecessor to the New York City Economic Development Corp.) and since then has held chief executive positions with some of the country’s leading development firms, including Forest City Ratner and Mack-Cali Realty Corp. She has overseen a host of high-profile projects and has been frank about who has guided her and now pays it forward and mentors others in their real estate careers.

Gilmartin, who serves as a special advisor to Fordham Real Estate Institute’s Executive Advisory Council, recently said at a “She Builds” session held at the university’s Lincoln Center campus, “I’ve built my career trying to bump up against what people think of as a developer and identify more with ‘placemaker.’ If I use the word ‘developer,’ I refer to myself as a ‘civic developer’ because what we do is contribute to civic life and with that comes a great responsibility. I’d love the word developer to mean all that I know that it is, which is a person who creates place, changes the skyline and the ground plane in cities, and builds something of lasting quality that impacts the lives of the community in which it exists.”

Gilmartin served as President and CEO of Forest City Ratner Companies, where she oversaw a host of game-changing ground-up developments and managed its multimillion square foot residential, commercial and retail portfolio. She also served as Chair of the Board of Directors and interim Chief Executive Officer of Mack-Cali Realty Corporation.

In her tenure at Forest City Ratner Companies, she spearheaded the development of some of the most high-profile real estate projects in New York City. She led the efforts to build Barclays Center, the state-of-the-art sports and entertainment venue and the centerpiece of the $4.9 billion, 22-acre mixed-use Pacific Park Brooklyn development.

She also oversaw the development of The New York Times Building, designed by world-renowned architect Renzo Piano; New York by Gehry, designed by award-winning architect Frank Gehry; and the Tata Innovation Center at Cornell Tech, a new office building that is a first-of-its-kind space for tech innovation, designed by Weiss/Manfredi on Roosevelt Island. During her tenure at Forest City, the firm also developed Ridge Hill in Yonkers.

Today, MAG Partners is developing a number of distinctive projects, including 281 West 28th Street, a mixed-income residential building designed by COOKFOX that will begin leasing in early 2023. In addition, the company is developing two other residential buildings and a boutique office building in Hudson Square. In partnership with Sagamore Ventures, Goldman Sachs Asset Management and MacFarlane Partners, MAG Partners is leading the development of Baltimore Peninsula, a 235-acre masterplan in Baltimore, MD. In 2023, 1.1 million square feet of office, retail and residential development will open on a prime waterfront location.

Gilmartin is a civic leader in the New York metropolitan area, serving as Chair Emeritus of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, a member of the Board of Trustees of The Brooklyn Academy of Music, a member of the New York Public Radio Board of Trustees, and a member of the Executive Committee and Board of Governors of The Real Estate Board of New York. At Columbia University, she is part of the Industry Advisory Board of the MS Real Estate Development Program as well as a member of the real estate advisory board in the Center for AI in Business Analytics & FinTech. In addition to her civic and industry board service, she was appointed a member of the board of directors of the global investment banking firm Jefferies Group LLC in 2014.

Real Estate In-Depth: Your background in real estate is very impressive, rising to president and CEO of Forest City Ratner Companies, serving as chairman and interim CEO of Mack-Cali Realty during a tense shareholder battle and founding your own real estate development company MAG Partners three years ago. Can you tell us what led you into the industry and what have been your keys to success in what has been a male-dominated industry?

Gilmartin: I call myself an accidental developer because this career path relied on serendipity. I had no inkling of what I wanted to be when I grew up, but coming out of university, I landed an Urban Fellow fellowship. I was assigned to New York City’s Public Development Agency, which is now the Economic Development Corporation. My plan was to spend a summer with them, and then go off to law school in September and fight for the rights of juveniles in the justice system.

At the Public Development Agency, I discovered that I had real estate development in my veins. At the time, leadership at PDC would challenge the team by saying, “Let’s look at the West Side, what should we do with it?” It was an incredible place to start a career and my path to meeting Bruce Ratner with whom I would work for the next 25 years.

My career grew in a meritocracy. Bruce always chose the best man or the best woman for the job. So, I always made sure to know the most, be the most prepared and worked the hardest. I never had my eye on the corner office, but it turns out, in a meritocracy, if you prove yourself, you can get the top job.

After serving as CEO at Forest City Ratner, I set out to build a company that looks a little more like the community for which we build, MAG Partners. This of course is a very simple statement, but I clearly have been a little bit of an anomaly in the business in a way that I wish I wasn’t.

Real Estate In-Depth: Were there people who were your mentors and/or helped you along the way in your career. If so, please explain?

Gilmartin: Mentoring has played an outsized role in my professional evolution. The role of mentor or mentee is critical to the career development of the women in our field, and I take my own responsibility seriously when I meet young women who want to get into the industry. My two most influential mentors have been Bruce Ratner and Mary Ann Tighe (CBRE). With both in my corner, I hit the career lottery. Because of the profound impact mentoring has had on my career, I have vowed to always be a mentor to others in order to pay it forward.

Real Estate In-Depth: What would you say were the obstacles you faced and women still must overcome in the commercial development arena and what advice do you have for women in commercial real estate?

Gilmartin: While I have said many times before that I never got that email that said, “you’re a woman so you should feel really intimidated” in this industry. But again, that is because I was part of a meritocracy and it was always the best man or woman for the job with Bruce Ratner. My advice is to be the most prepared and to not be afraid to show off your stuff.

Real Estate In-Depth: You recently began leasing MAG Partners’ first project—Ruby—a 480-unit residential project at 243 West 28th St. in Chelsea. In a short time, MAG Partners has built an impressive pipeline with projects planned at 335 Eighth Avenue, 300 East 50th St.; 122 Varick St. in the Hudson Square District; 44-02 Vernon Blvd. in Long Island City, as well as MAG Partners’ participation in the 1.1-million-square-foot Baltimore Peninsula Project. From what I understand, all of your New York City projects qualified for the now expired 421a tax incentive. Will the lack of 421a inhibit development in New York City in years to come if not reinstated in some form?

Gilmartin: Absolutely. But in the more near term, we are extremely focused on an extension to the deadline to complete these projects, something Governor Hochul put forward in her budget. This deadline is not just important to my company and the projects we have moving—the danger of missing the 2026 deadline is putting 33,000+ units in jeopardy of not moving forward. With the current challenges in the markets, it is critical that the legislature extend the deadline for vested projects.

Real Estate In-Depth: Does MAG Partners have any plans to enter other markets in the New York City metro area, specifically the lower Hudson Valley?

Gilmartin: The great thing about being a private company is that we can be opportunistic. We want to be rational and strategic, and we are not confined to New York City.



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