9.
Ronald A. Ratner, president and CEO, Forest City Enterprises Residential Group. “High-energy, committed, a risk taker.” That’s how one apartment expert describes Ron Ratner. In a division that owns or operates some 35,000 apartment units, Ratner has shaped projects that have transformed urban neighborhoods, often through adaptive reuse. Renters now live in stylish lofts that the company fashioned from a Boston bakery, a Denver officers’ quarters, a Los Angeles rail terminal, and tobacco warehouses in Richmond, Va. Among Forest City’s major mixed-used developments is Brooklyn Atlantic Yards, a $2.5 billion project that will include offices, retail, market-rate and affordable apartments, and a new arena for the New Jersey Nets pro basketball team. Preservationists praise Ratner for his “broad urban vision,” which goes beyond development or renovation of buildings to embrace the economic payoffs for entire neighborhoods. He is lobbying to make federal tax credits for rehab more useful for smaller projects.
8.
Peter F. Donovan, CEO, Deutsche Bank Berkshire Mortgage. Corporate takeovers can be devastating to staff, but the steady hand of Peter Donovan has kept morale high at Berkshire Mortgage since its acquisition by mammoth Deutsche Bank in 2004. In fact, Donovan actively sought a powerful partner to enhance his mortgage banking firm’s balance sheet and provide expanded services to customers. That’s good news for apartment developers, who depend on Berkshire financing. With Donovan at the helm since 1991, Berkshire has led the way in government-sponsored multifamily loans. Its servicing portfolio totals more than $18 billion, virtually all of it in Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, and affordable housing loans, and the firm originates more than $3 billion in loans annually. One of the industry’s most astute finance authorities, Donovan is a mainstay at ULI, the Mortgage Bankers Association, and the National Multi Housing Council.
7.
Thomas Toomey, president and CEO, United Dominion Realty Trust. How do you revive an apartment REIT whose lackluster performance had turned off investors? Hire Tom Toomey. Since the financial expert was lured away from AIMCO in 2001, Toomey has engineered an impressive turnaround. He has restructured debt, improved operations, built a more effective team, and relocated the corporate office from Richmond to Denver. Perhaps even more important is his reshaping of UDRT’s portfolio, which critics claim had become far too broad. He has sold properties in less attractive areas, where rents are lagging, and added billions of dollars of new assets in California, Florida, and D.C. where job growth is strong and barriers to development are high. “This industry can be very insular in its thinking,” says one executive, “and Tom is a dynamic, energetic guy who brings a fresh perspective.”
6.
Richard J. Campo, chairman and CEO, Camden Property Trust. When Ric Campo saw busloads of Katrina-displaced people heading for Houston‘s Astrodome, it didn’t take long for him to spring into action. Not only did he make hundreds of his own firm’s vacant apartments available to the newly homeless, but he also mobilized other Houston apartment executives to lend a hand. That take-charge attitude characterizes the way Campo has run Camden. Its market capitalization has soared from less that $200 million at its IPO in 1993 to more than $5.7 billion today with the 2005 acquisition of Summit Properties. That deal sharply accelerated Campo’s campaign to broaden the portfolio outside Texas into such areas as Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C. REIT executives also cite Campo’s appreciation for branding and his aggressive use of the Web for revenue management, marketing, and procurement.
