Nowadays it seems like everybody wants a piece of prime bayou real estate. Some have just landed in the Crescent City. Others have yet to arrive, but are sure to come on down. And there are those who have been here since the early days of rebuilding after The Storm. One is The Domain Cos., a ten-year-old real estate company active in both the established New York real estate market, as well as in up-and-coming New Orleans. Today we continue our two-part story about a company committed to creating sustainable communities that connect to the fabric of their city. One great example is The South Market District, a $250 million, five-phase, mixed-use, green, luxury project and the city’s first transit-oriented development. Encompassing almost four city blocks, it would be easy to assume that The South Market District is another homogenous monolith development. This couldn’t be further from the truth. As Matt Schwartz told The Balance Sheet, South Market was designed by a variety of architects to look like it came together organically. “In an effort to promote the sense of place throughout the district, we added unique features to each building to encourage activity and socialization.  For example, The Park will feature downtown’s first new public plaza in decades (Ed. occupying 2,200 square feet). The Paramount is set back from the street at the center to allow for more sidewalk dining, and The Beacon features a wide staircase off the sidewalk that’s accessible to the public, reminiscent of historic European buildings.  Furthermore, as a unique example of newly constructed multifamily in downtown, our product offers design, finishes and layouts superior to anything else currently in the market. “ Another element that allowed for South Market to differentiate itself from other projects was the possibility of reconfiguring...

Many North American property managers have grown their portfolios during the recent period of economic resurgence, but few can compare their experience to that of Bentall Kennedy’s multifamily portfolio. In just over two years, the well-known Canadian company – which has a century of experience in the commercial/industrial sectors – began and then quadrupled the size of its managed multi family residential rental portfolio. We recently sat down with Chrystal Skead, Bentall Kennedy’s Senior Director of Residential Property Management to learn about how Bentall Kennedy’s use of Yardi products helped make such a rapid expansion possible. Skead shared that Bentall Kennedy began its foray into the multifamily market with just three properties, amounting to 700 units, at the beginning of 2012. From inception, the intent was to acquire assets across Canada. The portfolio, now with 3,800 units, includes assets in Toronto, Regina, Calgary, Vancouver and Victoria. If you’re familiar with Canadian geography, that’s far from a centralized group of properties. The acquisition of the additional 2,800 units came in January 2014. But less than one year later, Skead said that use of Yardi Voyager helped the transition from three different management groups to one had been relatively easy. “When we grew by five-fold, it was relatively easy to do from a technology point of view. First, we needed to populate Yardi with the data provided by the previous property management company. Our accounting department dealt with most of that. Then it was only a matter of training the onboarding staff on the new systems and expectations,” Skead said. One of her favorite features of the Yardi multifamily platform is that it enables her to have transparency into a property’s performance and ease of remote management. “We had a situation where our portfolio in Toronto...

Exemplifying the concepts of New Urbanism, Issaquah Highlands is a master-planned community near Bellevue, Washington, with a dynamic mix of rental housing and single family homes. With four acres of open space set aside for every one acre of development, the Highlands provides residents with tremendous access to the great outdoors – but also features shopping, entertainment and even a green hospital in its commercial sector. We recently sat down for an interview with Rachel Garrett, the Highlands’ Director of Community Operations for the last 7 years. She shared some of the most popular amenities of this unique development and told us about how technology has positively influenced its management. What is your role at Issaquah Highlands? Garrett: I’m the Director of Community Operations, which means I oversee our community managers. They do our problem solving for homeowners and the work of issuing violations and community covenant enforcement. We have a master Homeowners Association, and 23 sub-associations. I also manage the operations side of our community, which involves day-to-day field oversight. Tell us about the range of housing opportunities provided at Issaquah Highlands? Garrett: We’ll build out at approximately 4,000 units of housing, and that includes roughly 760 rental units. 30% of all units within the Highlands are Affordable Housing Units. We have everything from 400-sqare foot studio condos to 5,000 square foot homes that sell for $5 million. Our total population is about 9,000 residents. What does the commercial portion of the project include? Garrett: The commercial portion of the project really transitioned in progress due to the influence of the recession. It was initially proposed to be this very high end shopping center, more like The Grove in Los Angeles. But after the economic downturn, people weren’t developing retail like that anymore,...

Early in his career, a well-meaning mentor suggested to David Antonelli that he might consider focusing on finance, rather than real estate, so he could easily transition between asset classes during variable economic times. “In the end, I liked real estate so much that I nodded politely and went on with my career. Twenty-five years later, I’m still in the real estate business,” said Bentall Kennedy’s executive vice president and portfolio manager for its Multi-Employer Property Trust (MEPT), the firm’s open-end commingled private equity real estate fund and one of the largest of its class. Antonelli talked to us about the high-performing MEPT and where it is focusing its investment dollars. Give us a brief synopsis of the background of the MEPT fund and its investment emphasis? Antonelli: MEPT is an open end, core private equity real estate fund that invests in institutional quality commercial real estate throughout the United States. The investment objective of the fund is to provide competitive, risk adjusted total returns throughout all real estate cycles. The fund was founded in 1982 by Bentall Kennedy and it now has over $6.8 billion in gross assets, along with 320 investors, which makes MEPT one of the largest private equity real estate funds in the U.S. What has the fund’s return rate been to date? Antonelli:  Since its inception, the fund has produced a 7.85 percent total return, and over 90 percent of that total return has come from fund income. MEPT’s total return, I think it’s important to note, exceeds most pension plans’ actuarial assumptions. The fund’s investment strategy is focused on maintaining strong and stable income, building a diversified modern portfolio, providing superior liquidity, and it’s also executed with strong commitment to the principles of responsible property investing, similarly or...

“Will I ever be normal again?” It’s not the sort of question you would expect from an eight-year-old. The counselor struggled with the answer. The young boy could feel normal again even after the passing of his mother. He could feel safe, happy, and hopeful. He just needed support, time, and the right tools. Since 1974, Hospice of Santa Barbara has equipped families with the tools needed to face the passing of a loved one or confront the end of life for themselves. The organization serves a diverse clientele, each struggling to face tragedy with a sense of peace. Steve Jacobsen, Executive Director, has found beauty in the human spirit’s quest to understand the meaning of life and death. “In hospice, when people are themselves facing the prospect of dying or the prospect of a loved one dying, that search for how to make sense of things becomes genuine,” says Steve. “I find it very moving to see how people come terms with things, when they do. There is a part of the beauty of the human spirit that becomes evident.” Hospice of Santa Barbara is the first of its kind on the west coast. After years of providing traditional hospice care, the organization developed a new method of operation. In 1990, it became a volunteer hospice that collaborates with professional nurses, doctors, caseworkers, and spiritual leaders to offer cost-free support to those in need. “[The medical] side of hospice comes with a lot of restrictions, regulations, and federal oversight that would cause us to be limited in what we could do for people,” Steve explains. “We don’t provide medical care and we don’t charge anybody for what we do which allows us to be involved as broadly and as deeply as the situation...

Sulzbacher Center is Northeast Florida’s largest provider of comprehensive services for homeless individuals.  The organization provides vital health, housing, educational, and career services to Jacksonville’s most vulnerable population. The organization adapts as the needs of the community change; what began as a center primary tailoring to chronically homeless men has expanded services to assist the growing number of homeless families. “We recently did a count in Jacksonville. While the amount of homeless veterans and chronically homeless individuals is going down in our city, the number of homeless families has increased,” says Allison Vega, Public Relations and Marketing Manager at Sulzbacher Center. The surge in homeless families began during the recession. “Families are often victims of crisis poverty,” begins Vega. “They lost jobs. They lost homes. They have nowhere else to go. This is the first time that they’ve ever been homeless. If you had asked me prior to the recession what had caused the majority of people to come to us, it would be substance abuse and mental health issues. Now, it’s overwhelmingly crisis poverty.” Sulzbacher Center created a family shelter with rooms that allow families to stay together. This facility houses about thirty families at any given time. Unfortunately, many families are placed on a waiting list. Families can obtain a variety of services through the center and its comprehensive campus of services. Primary care, dental, vision, and behavioral health specialists are on hand to provide on-site care. Families can seek counseling as individuals or as a group. Educational programming offers educational and emotional support to children who are facing one of the toughest phases in their lives. Though Sulzbacher Center has adapted to the increase in displaced families, the organization has not lost sight of its original demographic. The HOPE street team still makes...

Amidst rising health care costs and the great urban rebound, the car is being replaced by alternative means of transport, such as biking. Millennials, one of the largest renter cohorts, are driving 23 percent less today than their peers did in 2001. According to U.S. Public Interest Research Group per capita driving rates have shrunken to 1996 levels.  The American Public Transit Association found that Millennials’ preferred method of getting around is biking, while driving came in last, behind mass transit and walking. But on-the-go Millennials aren’t the only ones choosing two wheels instead of four. Between 2000 and 2011 the number of Americans getting to work mostly by bike grew by 47 percent, New Geography found. According to the latest National Household Travel Survey data the 60 to 79 demographic generated 37 percent of the nation’s increase in biking between 1995 and 2009. Moreover, between 2001 and 2011 the number of biking baby boomers doubled, according to Bicycle Retailer Industry Directory. So how does the growing popularity of biking fit into America’s communities and apartment industry? Zach Vanderkooy, PeopleforBikes’ Green Lane Project International Programs Manager, elaborates. What are the benefits of biking? Zach Vanderkooy: There are so many — it’s a low-cost, convenient way to get around for short trips, it reduces traffic congestion, adds economic vitality, provides access to fresh air, all while being a physical activity that’s built in to everyday life. Riding a bike is inherently joyful and practical. You don’t have to work too hard to sell that. Most importantly, biking offers a chance to explore and engage with a community at a more human scale. Much like people on foot, people on bikes activate a place with recognizable faces — every passing rider is a chance for a...

Though 11 Dupont Circle commanded a more-than-respectable $89 million when it traded in September, it was far from the biggest or most expensive property to change hands this year in Washington, D.C. A number of other office properties in the capital have commanded several times as much. Whatever it appeared to lack in size, however, the deal made, up in savvy. Not only is the 155,713-square-foot building fully leased, its submarket, Dupont Circle, ranks among the most vibrant urban neighborhoods in the country. And the deal allowed its new owner, Yardi client First Potomac Realty Trust of Bethesda, Md., to reach a major milestone. The acquisition of 11 Dupont Circle boosted the REIT’s holdings in the District past 1 million square feet. Once principally an owner of flex and industrial properties, the 17-year-old REIT has transformed itself in recent years into one of the rising office investors in the nation’s capital. To this hyper-competitive market Donatelli brings a lifetime of local knowledge, diverse executive experience and a reputation for decisiveness. “He is a very good dealmaker,” said Robert Cohen, CEO Of Washington-based Perseus Realty L.L.C. “He doesn’t lollygag around when he sees something he likes.” First Potomac is teaming with Perseus on its biggest development project to date. The partners are targeting a 2015 start for Storey Park, a planned $280 million mixed-use development in the city’s NoMa (North of Massachusetts) neighborhood. Located two blocks from the Union Station transit hub, Storey Park will consist of 60,000 square feet of ground-floor retail topped by 280 residential units and about 350,000 square feet of office space. That project is a vote of confidence in a market that has endured its share of ups and downs during the past several years. After confirming its stature in...

Leslie Dabi, Information Systems Manager at nonprofit developer and manager EAH Housing, had a few reservations when EAH began internal discussions about moving to a SaaS-based model. EAH Housing is the type of hands-on organization who liked being self-hosted – Dabi would handle Yardi server updates herself and enjoyed running custom reports for EAH. Moving to the cloud made EAH Housing wonder. Would giving up control and maintenance of the corporate servers mean problems would take longer to solve? What would happen if something crashed? Would service requests be handled promptly? As it turned out, going to the cloud meant that EAH Housing and Dabi get a better night’s sleep. “I spend less time worrying about server crashes or getting that email at 3 a.m. that we can’t contact the server and everything is down. We’re no longer worrying about blackouts – in the past, if our corporate office went down, all 111 properties in California and Hawaii would go down, just because we were holding our servers in-house. For us to replicate that information to another location wasn’t feasible,” Dabi told us. Since the move, things have been running smoothly. No outages have taken place. Maintenance is planned well in advance, and EAH Housing is notified accordingly. The Yardi affordable and cloud support teams are readily available and happy to help with any issues. “They’re very quick. If we need a restoration of a database, it happens now in maybe 15 minutes. I used to do that on my own and back up my own systems, and it took forever for me to do it. For them to do it is much quicker,” Dabi noted. Maintenance and updates typically take place in the early morning hours, so no work-day access is lost. “It’s...

According to the most recent report released by the Center for Disease Control, 22 percent of girls and 18 percent of boys in grades 9-12 reported being bullied at school. The National Association of School Psychologists estimates that is about 3.2 million children who face verbal and physical abuse at the hands of their peers. Although 71 percent of students report incidents of bullying as a problem at their school, most schools aren’t equipped to handle their concerns. Academy of Healing Arts (AHA! ) Santa Barbara hopes to change all of that, not just in local school districts but throughout the US. The organization strives to achieve its goal by beginning with those who bully and are bullied the most: school children. 67 percent of students believe that schools respond poorly to bullying and that adult help is often ineffective. By working directly with students, AHA! empowers youth to discourage bullying amongst themselves and become advocates of empathy and change. Molly Green, Development Director at AHA!, knows that strengthening the connection between children plays a key role in the solution to bullying. “If you’re connected to the person next to you, you’re less likely to harm them. Our program is always encouraging self-expression, empathy for the person next to you, and an understanding of commonality.” To forge these connections, AHA! staff creates counsel circles that bring together the bully, the person that was bullied, and anyone affected by the incident. Through a series of activities and conversations, students learn to share their circumstances, take responsibility for their actions, and learn how their actions impact other members of their community. AHA!’s principles are based on restorative approaches. Rather than punitive measures, like chastisement and expulsion, restorative approaches bring people together to connect, understand, and take...

One company, two families, three generations.  That’s the short story of Drucker & Falk, a noted real estate management and investment firm now in its 76th year. With a 30,000 unit fee managed portfolio spread over  seven states, this is no mom-and-pop property management operation – though it is firmly rooted in family and tradition.  In addition to multifamily management, Drucker & Falk also offers multifamily and commercial investment brokerage services and commercial property management, with an office/retail portfolio of 4 million square feet. Over the years, the company has turned down buy-out offers from major national players, preferring to continue on the path their grandfathers initiated. “We’ve changed with the times, which I think can be one reason why companies rarely make it to a third generation. But we’ve held on to the core principles of the original founders,” says David Falk, Jr. The three current Managing Directors of the company – David Falk,  Jr., Wendy Drucker, and Kellie Falk, are the grandchildren of founding partners A. Louis Drucker and Emanuel Falk. They’re the children of Erwin Drucker and David Falk, Sr., who expanded the company from Virginia to North Carolina 45 years ago. Privately held mid-size companies don’t always last past a second generation, and partnerships bring an extra layer of potential complications. But the managing directors of Drucker & Falk believe they may even make it to a fourth round of descendant ownership, and they point back to their grandfathers as one of the reasons why. Founding Grandfathers Louis Drucker and Emanuel Falk came from very different backgrounds. Drucker was a British immigrant to the U.S., who had served in the Merchant Marine before opening a grocery store in Newport News, Virginia.  “Manny” Falk, a Newport News teen, met Drucker when...

It’s bittersweet to look over these images of our last Yardi Advanced Solutions Conference in Santa Barbara.  However, we are looking forward to hosting YASC next fall in a larger location to accommodate more attendees.  Thanks to all of the clients and Yardi staff who made this year’s event one of our most memorable. Find registration information for upcoming conferences on...

Unstable growth and slashed funding in affordable housing would suggest that the sector is no longer a lucrative investment. But demand soars higher and countless companies are showcasing just how rewarding affordable housing can be. Yardi client WinnResidential, the property management arm of WinnCompanies, reigns as the nation’s largest affordable multifamily property management company as ranked by the National Affordable Housing Management Association (NAHMA). WinnResidential is also the nation’s sixth largest residential property management firm overall. In the right hands, affordable housing can be an asset to any growing portfolio. In his 20 years with WinnCompanies, Senior Vice President Brian Kean has witnessed the company’s growth despite major cuts in federal and local funding for affordable housing. With outside resources limited, WinnCompanies has to focus on other factors to ensure continued growth. The company’s large scale success with affordable housing development and management comes in part by responding to what consumers want:  affordable rents, sustainability, and stellar customer service. To keep development costs low, WinnCompanies often seeks to renovate existing apartment complexes rather than pursue new construction. This approach reduces the amount of costly building materials needed while increasing the availability of quality affordable housing. WinnCompanies works hard to make operations as efficient as possible given limited resources. From a corporate level to onsite staff, the company operates on Yardi Voyager Affordable Housing in conjunction Yardi Budgeting and Forecasting to promote efficiency and accuracy. The software requires fewer employees to get involved in the paper shuffle. “Budgeting has been helpful because previously we were doing it offline on a large linked spreadsheet, which worked fairly well but we had to take the budgets and manually load them into Yardi. It was quite inefficient,” explains Kean.  “In this way, if there are any last minute...

The story of Yardi client, The Graham Companies, is a lesson in adaptability. When life handed him lemons, founder Ernest Graham made more than lemonade. He transformed a failed sugar cane plantation into a profitable town with commercial and residential properties as well as farms for dairy, pecans, and beef. Nearly a century later, The Graham Companies continues its success by embracing versatility. Graham arrived in south Florida in the 1920s to manage fields for the Pennsylvania Sugar Company. The Great Depression quickly ended that career. Instead of fixating on his losses, Graham took inventory of what he had: thousands of acres, plenty of dairy cows, and a wife who was a great business partner. The two soon opened Graham Dairy Incorporated, which became one of the largest dairy farms in the state. The family faced another dilemma less than thirty years later. Nearby Miami began to outgrow its original city limits. Developers made enticing offers on the Grahams’ farmland. Rather than bow to the pressure, the family decided to develop their land on their own terms. The concept of Miami Lakes took root, including multi-family, mixed-use, commercial, industrial, and hospitality properties. The town has been growing ever since. Miami Lakes is a predecessor of New Urbanism, providing its 30,000 residents with pedestrian access to more than 1,100 businesses, 99 parks, and numerous amenities. The town has received honors as an All American City Finalist and one of the top 100 Best Communities for Young People. “The reason Miami Lakes is so successful is because the quality of our properties is much higher than all of the surrounding areas,” says Andre Teixeira, Executive Vice President and CFO of The Graham Companies. “Everybody wants to live in Miami Lakes. They want to work in Miami Lakes....

When J Turner Research released its list of top ten apartment resident complaints, three of the top five complaints reflected renters’ dissatisfaction with onsite staff’s responsiveness; poor grounds upkeep, disorganized  staff and lingering maintenance requests lessen the chances of lease renewals and referrals. One community has discovered how Yardi Maintenance Mobile keeps staff on top of resident concerns before they become complaints. During Wesley Fonseca’s time as a maintenance tech in the Atlanta area, he has worked at several apartment communities offering varying degrees of customer satisfaction. He has observed that time management directly affects a team’s ability to meet residents’ needs and provide top quality service. “The toughest part of our job would be time management,” says Fonseca. “Being able to schedule work orders is important, so important. That will make or break a maintenance team. I’ve seen teams that were exceptional in time management and other teams that were just not and the property was in chaos.” Without a convenient maintenance app, techs may miss out on details such as move-in dates, establishing a bad first impression when new tenants arrive to a unit that isn’t ready. Techs must also return to the leasing office several times throughout the day to sign off on completed assignments and pick up new ones, wasting precious time that’s better used out in the field. With few ways to handle scheduling conflicts, pop-up emergencies, and other delays, techs may arrive late to scheduled work orders or miss out on some entirely. At Fonseca’s current community, Post Glen in Brookhaven, his team implemented Yardi’s Maintenance Mobile with great success. “I’ve seen my time management get so much better with Yardi because of how I’m able to access the work orders on my smartphone. Maintenance Mobile has helped...

Michael J. Novogradac, a managing partner at Novogradac & Co., estimates that available affordable housing lags behind demand by as many as 20 million units. The funding simply isn’t there. Without it, low-income families and affordable housing providers are running low on options. Aubrey Fakalata, Resident Manager of Yardi client Burbank Housing has experienced the dire need for new construction firsthand, “That was one of the reasons why [Burbank Housing] built Logan Place (pictured, right), was for the homeless. When the company advertised that they were opening a brand new affordable housing property, they went straight to the homeless shelters. A majority of our applicants were from the shelters throughout Sonoma County,” she says. Without adequate housing availability, low-income families are relegated to shelters or the streets. Competition for one of the few affordable housing units becomes desperate. There are several factors contributing to the decline in available housing. Primarily, the building costs have increased while equity has remained the same for decades. There are also fewer gap financing offers and tax credits, with less money flowing from HUD in programs such as the HOME Investment Partnerships and The Community Development Block Grant. Lastly, equity investors aren’t seeing the returns that they would prefer, making affordable housing an unappealing option. “There is always a shortage of federal and state tax credits to go around,” begins Jeanne Taylor, CFO of Preservation of Affordable Housing, a Yardi client. “After the economy hit a few years ago, the tax credit arena wasn’t as plentiful…and the investors became a little stricter in their requirements.” Future tax reform could further tighten investors’ purse strings. Any legislation that includes lower rates and longer depreciation would damage the industry’s bottom line. Novogradac & Co. proposes that the industry would see as...

The solution was obvious. If you can’t feed 100 people, then feed just one. It was a simple solution to a problem that didn’t exist. At least, that’s what Cheryl Jackson was told. As she educated on food insecurity in the area, many fellow residents pulled her aside to inform her that there were no hungry people in Plano, TX. “First, we had a problem educating people about the need. The need exists,” says Jackson. “They see people smiling but they don’t understand what could be going on in the background: if that smiling person earns minimum wage and they’re struggling to make ends meet or if they’re earning $11-12 per hour but that’s just not enough to support their families. Outside, everything can appear to be okay but people need help.” Jackson saw beyond the façade. In 2008, she pulled back the veil on food security and actively sought a solution by founding Minnie’s Food Pantry. She knew that the quality of food and consistency of availability would go a long way towards promoting health for North Texas families in need. She immediately sought out corporate sponsors and partnerships in addition to community contributions. Progress was slow at first but soon Minnie’s Food Pantry began to grow. Minnie’s couldn’t have come at a better time. Federal funds for SNAP food assistance were slashed by $5 billion. Families that were on the brink soon found themselves in desperate need. Ubiquitous job cuts lead to an increase in families who struggled with food security as the recession lingered. On several occasions, volunteers who once helped distribute food returned in need of assistance. “I had a management team from a huge corporation that came to volunteer. Before every group serves, I always tell them, ‘This could...