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Meet the Fifields
By Jeffrey Steele on May 28, 2015 in People
When Steven and Randy Fifield discuss what sets their company apart from its competitors, they often use a hockey analogy. They speak of being able to “anticipate where the puck is going,” as Randy Fifield says.
It’s a fitting metaphor to describe the couple whose companies, Chicago-based Fifield Companies and Los Angeles-based Century West Partners (a Yardi client), have developed such trendsetting properties as Alta at K Station and The Californian on Wilshire. The Fifields display a Gretzky-like ability to visualize the course of action before it happens and be there before their rivals. That’s true whether they’re blazing development trails on the fringes of Chicago’s Loop or rigorously researching the lifestyle passions of distinct renting cohorts in L.A.Little wonder Fifield Companies captured a 2014 MHN Excellence Award for Best New Development: High-Rise with K2, its 34-floor, 496-unit apartment community in Chicago’s increasingly hot West Loop.
In February, the couple unveiled their newest Chicago-area project, E2, a 356-unit luxury residential tower in near-north suburban downtown Evanston.
Charles Huzenis, principal of Chicago’s JRG Capital Partners, has been a real estate investment partner of the Fifields for 10 years. “They have great vision well in advance of others, and
that’s totally displayed in their K Station projects,” he said. “When that deal first got going, it was kind of no man’s land out there. Nobody was willing to bid on those deals when it was just raw land. Now every institution in the country wants a piece of that area.” Elissa Morgante, principal of Evanston’s Morgante-Wilson, an acclaimed, high-end residential architectural firm, served as architectural interior designer at E2. “They are very passionate about what they do,” she said. “They have a vision. They give you direction as far as the uniqueness and ‘wow’ they want. But they give you a lot of latitude … It was just a great synergy between us.”
Foils for each other
Observers of the company sometimes size up Steve’s finance background and Randy’s residential and design background, and assume the Fifields confine their activities to those respective specialties, Steve says. “But we act as foils for one another,” he adds.
“There are many times where she has comments on the financing structure of the deals. Or [she] says ‘drill down a bit more on the financial structure.’ Conversely, I’ll ask questions about the design elements of a building. We actually relish the opportunities to push each other to do things better,” Steve explains. “That arm wrestling we do is actually very productive, which enables us to produce leading-edge projects.”
An example of such decision-making came during the planning for their apartment towers at Alta at K Station, where the Fifields included their first full-size basketball court. “That was a push by Randy, who’s only five-feet-five, but thought it important,” Steve says. The court made the community one of the most popular in the city for athletic men, which in turn spurred its popularity with fit single women, and resulted in its pool being dubbed “South Beach.”
Adds Randy: “A lot of times I’ll be called ‘the girl with the boots on the ground.’ But it takes two of us, whether one of us is in the ivory tower and the other has the boots on the ground. The fine tuning and constant grooming of the company is always necessary. We don’t rest on our laurels.”
