MaryAnne Gilmartin
Elizabeth Lippman
President & CEO, Forest City Ratner Cos.
“For a developer, you are what you build,” says MaryAnne Gilmartin. And for a woman whose portfolio includes numerous significant projects, including The New York Times Building, the Barclays Center, and New York by Gehry (the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere), that characterization couldn’t be more appropriate.
Gilmartin is a force to be reckoned with, as anyone who has worked with her has learned. She doesn’t shy away from complicated projects and gamely pursues new challenges, such as when she convinced Forest City to chase The New York Times Building deal. The firm had never built a skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan before and was even considered the underdog in the competition, but Gilmartin went toe-to-toe with the biggest builders in the city to win the contract.
“I don’t think I ever got the memo that said I don’t have a place at the table,” she says of often being the only woman in the room. “I felt, based on the merits, I had something to contribute. I knew my business, why I was there, and what I was supposed to be doing.”
Gilmartin’s next challenge: the tallest modular building in America, in Brooklyn, N.Y. “It creates an unbelievably compelling model for cities to build multifamily, particularly affordable housing, at a price point and cost equation that allows us to do more of it in a way that’s more effective,” she says.
But she’s not stopping there. Gilmartin hopes to shift the industry to more mixed-use buildings based on a work–live–play lifestyle.
“We could create a new generation of space that’s really thoughtful, really beautiful, and highly functional,” she says.
