Repositioning & Redeveloping New Jersey

Michael Sommer is Chief Development Officer at Kushner. In this role, Sommer oversees development and construction efforts throughout the Kushner portfolio. During his 25 years of real estate experience, Sommer has developed in excess of 8 million square feet of residential, retail and office assets. Most notably, Sommer has managed the development of 4,000+ residential units in New Jersey. Prior to Kushner, Sommer was Senior Vice President of Development and Construction at Cedar Realty Trust, a NYSE listed retail REIT with a portfolio spanning from Washington, D.C. to Boston. Before Cedar, Sommer was Executive Vice President of Development at Edison Properties where he led the redevelopment of the award winning Ironside Newark in Newark, New Jersey. Sommer also served as Managing Director of Development at Advance Realty after having started his career at Premier Development. Sommer earned an MBA from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Business from Lafayette College.

Steve Nislick is currently Chief Financial Officer of Hugo Neu Corporation, a privately owned company that builds, operates and invests in innovative real estate, recycling, energy, and other cleantech ventures. Steve is retired from Edison Properties, LLC, after 40 years, where he was Chief Executive Officer. As CEO, he was responsible for all aspects of financial, operating and administrative performance of all Edison businesses. Steve is Founder and President of NYCLASS (New Yorkers for Clean, Livable and Safe Streets). Through NYCLASS, he has been actively involved with various animal rights organizations such as ASPCA, PETA, HSUS, etc. to transform the horse-drawn carriage industry and replace the carriage horses with a fleet of green-powered replica antique cars. He has been involved with horses since 1991 and is deeply interested in the welfare and inhumane treatment of horses. Steve has lived on Central Park West since 1994 and has personally seen the constant abuse and mistreatment of carriage horses. Steve and his wife, Linda, own 4 horses; 2 event horses, 1 dressage horse and 1 rescued carriage horse, Chance. Chance is a 7 year-old Percheron who had only been on the streets for 3 years and began to suffer from founder. She was sent to slaughter by her owner for the price of $400. After being rescued, Chance was given the proper treatment and rest to let her feet recover and she is doing great. Until recently, Steve was actively involved in non profit causes, and sat on the boards of several local organizations, including the Princeton Blairstown Center, Board of Milano - the New School for Management and Urban Policy and the NYC Citizens Budget Commission. Steve has contributed close to $500,000 to The Carolina Center for Jewish Studies at The University of North Carolina. Steve earned a BS in accounting from the Universtity of North Carolina and is a Certified Public Accountant in the state of New Jersey.

Jose is a senior managing director and co-office head in the New Jersey office of JLL Capital Markets, Americas. He joins JLL as part of the HFF acquisition and is a member of the firm’s leadership committee. Jose specializes in investment advisory throughout New Jersey, New York and Connecticut and also oversees the day-to-day operations of the firm’s New Jersey office. During the course of his more than 25-year commercial real estate career, he’s been involved in more than $62 billion of office, industrial, retail, multifamily and land sales. Jose started at HFF in March 2010. Before that, he was the executive director of Cushman & Wakefield’s New York area investment sales group where he spent more than 17 years. He began his real estate career as a real estate analyst at PaineWebber, UBS, Inc.

Adam Taylor is the Owner & CEO of Splendor, a full-service agency based in Red Bank, New Jersey. For the past several years, Splendor has been laser-focused on the commercial real estate industry, providing top regional developers and related businesses with insightful, strategic consultation along with award-winning design, branding, web, and marketing solutions. Under Taylor’s direction, Splendor has successfully branded and marketed over $1 billion dollars’ worth of commercial real estate in the Tri-State area.

Ralph Zucker is President of Somerset Development, one of the New York Metropolitan region’s foremost pioneers of New Urbanism and Traditional Neighborhood Design development. Throughout his career, Zucker has worked hands-on in every facet of the building and development process, and has demonstrated a commitment to working with municipalities to create innovative communities based on the principles of New Urbanism. Zucker is perhaps best known for Bell Works, the two-million-square-foot redevelopment of the former Bell Labs property in Holmdel, N.J., where he and the Somerset Development team successfully transformed the iconic Saarinen-designed research facility into a “metroburb,” a term that Somerset coined to describe the suburban building’s revival into a blossoming, downtown-style ecosystem of technology, traditional office, retail, dining and hospitality. Today, Zucker and his team are in the midst of redeveloping The Ameritech Center in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, originally built as the former AT&T research facility, into Bell Works Chicagoland. The 1.65-million square foot building, which has already welcomed retail and office tenants, is quickly transforming into another successful metroburb. Under Zucker’s leadership, Somerset and its projects have earned numerous industry awards and recognition for their contributions to furthering responsible development practices, including the New Jersey Future Smart Growth Award for Wesmont Station, Somerset's 70-acre transit-oriented mixed-use redevelopment located in Wood-Ridge, N.J., where Somerset partnered with NJ TRANSIT to build a brand new train station that provides access to Manhattan.

Michael Allen Seeve is the President and a principal of regional developer Mountain Development Corp. Founded in 1979, MDC was originally formed to manage the real estate portfolio of its Chairman, L. Robert Lieb. Since that time, MDC has steadily expanded by making opportunistic investments in various locations, urban and suburban, throughout the Northeast. Today, MDC manages a diverse collection of primarily commercial, retail and industrial assets totaling almost six million square feet and spanning five States. Ventures led by MDC include partnerships with some of the nation’s leading pension fund advisors, family offices and other qualified investors and investments in almost every type of commercial asset class. MDC has successfully completed projects with a high level of complexity, such as the conversion of Dun & Bradstreet’s former Murray Hill headquarters into the highly recognized Summit Medical Group campus in Berkeley Heights and the Mountain Technology Center in Clifton; a former laboratory building which was converted into a data center along with a new 215,000 s.f. multistory data center developed out of the ground. New developments include 19 and 21 Roszel Road, two class A office buildings in West Windsor, the first of which was completed in early 2015 and new acquisitions include Harbor Square in Stamford, CT, 26 Main Street in Chatham, NJ, 67 Walnut Avenue in Clark, NJ, One Harmon Plaza in the Meadowlands and 600 Parsippany Road in Parsippany, NJ. More detailed information about MDC can be found on our website: www.mountaindevelopment.com MDC is firmly committed to the communities in which it invests as witnessed by the activities of its two principals. Bob sits as Co-Chairman of the Bryant Park Management Corp. in New York City, the public-private venture responsible the renovation and management of Bryant Park; as past Chairman of the Public Health Research Institute in Newark, a nationally recognized scientific research facility which leads in the fight against infectious disease; and as past Chairman of the Passaic County 200 Club, which supports law enforcement, fire safety and other first responders. Michael is a past President of the New Jersey Chapter of NAIOP, which is the State’s leading trade association for the commercial real estate development industry. The organization, which currently has more than 700 members in New Jersey, focuses on advocacy, professional advancement and industry best practices. Michael currently serves on the chapter’s Executive Committee and its Developer’s Political Action Committee. Michael serves as a public Trustee of William Paterson University, one of the State’s public higher education institutions and is a past Chairman of the University’s Foundation. He is also Chairman of the Paterson Special Improvement District, a public private partnership active in the central business district of the State’s third largest City. Michael also serves on the District VC Fee Arbitration Committee for Office of Attorney Ethics and, as well, on the Code Advisory Group for the Codes and Standards division of the State of New Jersey Department of Community Affairs. Michael is a past Chairman of the Barnert Hospital Foundation. Michael was recognized as an honoree at William Paterson University’s annual gala in 2015. Mountain Development Corp. was recognized by NJ NAIOP as their annual awards dinner in 1993, 2006 and 2012. Michael was Barnert Hospital’s Man of the Year at their 2006 Gala and, in 2006, was named one of “Forty under 40” by NJ BIZ, and received the same recognition in 2005 from Real Estate New Jersey magazine. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 and lives in Montclair, New Jersey with his wife and their two sons.

Jeffrey S. Beenstock is a transactional real estate attorney with more than 20 years of experience representing businesses, real estate investors, developers, and lenders, as well as public sector agencies, in a range of transactions and projects. He has guided and closed a wide variety of real estate and finance transactions as well as the real estate aspects of corporate transactions, including large, high-profile mergers and acquisitions and divestitures. Although Mr. Beenstock works on all types of real estate transactions, he has significant experience in affordable housing, redevelopment, leasing, and eminent domain law. Mr. Beenstock’s experience includes representing developers and public housing authorities in affordable family and senior housing matters involving federal and state programs financed in part with low-income housing tax credits and other state and federal programs geared toward affordable housing. He has gained project approvals and financing for clients from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and state agencies including the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency (NJHMFA), the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs (DCA), the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB), and the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency (PHFA). He has experience with a variety of deal structures and mixed financing that combines private investment with government subsidies including tax credits, grants, and tax-exempt bonds. Mr. Beenstock’s multidimensional experience enables him to effectively advocate for clients through the entirety of a deal, including leasing, asset refinancing, disposition, investment, and syndication. Mr. Beenstock also represents clients in all phases of property transfer through eminent domain, starting with negotiations and continuing through litigation, if necessary. He has served as counsel to public agency condemners acquiring land as well as to condemnees from whom property is being taken. He regularly handles eminent domain property acquisitions relating to redevelopment projects. Mr. Beenstock’s extensive involvement with professional, civic, and charitable organizations includes providing legal services pro bono for many years to Burlington County (New Jersey) Habitat for Humanity, assisting the nonprofit affordable housing developer with real estate finance legal issues and documents. He has also served on the board of trustees of the South Jersey Eye Center, a nonprofit organization providing eye care to indigent New Jersey residents, since 2004. Mr. Beenstock is an elected member of the Township Council of the Township of Medford, a community of approximately 23,000 residents in southern New Jersey. Appointed to fill a vacancy in 2011, Mr. Beenstock was elected in 2012 and re-elected in 2013. His current term expires at the end of 2017. Under the township’s Council-Manager form of government, in which the Mayor and Deputy Mayor are chosen from Council by a vote of the members, he served as Deputy Mayor in 2015 and is currently serving as Mayor. Mr. Beenstock’s public service began when he became involved years ago in his neighborhood homeowners’ association and was elected association president, which led to involvement with township-wide issues.