New Rochelle: The Best of Both Worlds

Ayall Schanzer has a long and varied business and legal career that has enabled him to develop significant levels of expertise in a diverse number of areas relevant to commercial real estate. As the Principal Broker heading up the Greiner-Maltz Westchester, Connecticut and Bronx offices, he is able to use those numerous skill sets to create areas of opportunities for our clients. Schanzer began his illustrious career as a NY County Assistant District Attorney under Robert M. Morgenthau before becoming a corporate litigator at Rosenman & Colin LLP, where he specialized in serving financial services companies such as Bear Stearns and Greenwich Capital. As an attorney, Schanzer has experience not only litigating complex matters but also helping his clients raise capital, acquire and dispose of companies, as well as helping them navigate government regulation and oversight. As an attorney-turned-business executive, Ayall sits at the crossroads within the fields of law, finance, corporate strategy, and real estate; where he is known as a high-energy professional with excellent communication, negotiation, deal-making, team-building and interpersonal skills. He also possesses keen business insight and the ability to deliver transformational results. Schanzer received a Master’s of Business Administration from Cornell University, a Juris Doctor degree from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York, and a BA in Political Science from Queens College. As Principal at Greiner Maltz, Ayall is helping the company expand its geographical footprint, expand its pool of talent, and broaden the depth, breadth and scope of the services it provides its broad base of customers and clients comprised of property owners, developers, industrial and retail users.

Alex Twining is President and CEO of Twining Properties with over 4 msf of development in New York City and Boston. Mr. Twining has been a real estate developer for over 35 years. He has structured $2 B in equity and debt capital transactions and negotiated numerous complex acquisitions, land assemblages and joint ventures. Projects include the 510,000 square foot Watermark Kendall Projects include the three block Mass+Main project in Central Square, the 300,000 sf Watermark Seaport in Boston, 560,000 sf Watermark Kendall in Cambridge, MA, 170,000 sf Watermark Court Square in Long Island City, the 1 msf mixed use tower 440 West 42 Street in Midtown Manhattan and the 2.5 msf residential component of Seaport Square overlooking the Boston Harbor. Mr. Twining was CEO of MetroNexus, a Morgan Stanley Real Estate Funds Enterprise which managed the redevelopment of a 3 msf portfolio in the US and Canada. At Morgan Stanley he worked with its real estate, venture capital and telecom groups to launch a $1.25 B global platform. Mr. Twining also managed $3.0 B of Morgan Stanley's most complex real estate investments, including $1.2 B of acquisitions and over $750 M of dispositions. His focus at Morgan Stanley was on large scale development properties including The Woodlands, a 25,000-acre new town in Texas, John Buck Company's 3 msf North Bridge, urban mixed-used development in Chicago and The Gale Company’s 6 msf national office portfolio including the 1 msf One Lincoln Street. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley in 1998, Mr. Twining was an officer of AvalonBay Communities, a $4 B multi-family REIT where he expanded the suburban garden apartment company into urban residential development, creating the management team and a pipeline of 3,000 apartments. For Colgate Palmolive he directed the development of the $2 B, 8 msf Colgate Center in NJ. He was Regional Partner for FD Rich Companies' Boston office overseeing a 2 msf mixed use hotel, office and retail development and directed an 800,000 square foot mixed use hotel residential and office development for BF Saul Company, halfway between the White House and US Capitol in Washington, DC. Mr. Twining is a ULI Trustee and Governor, an architect and real estate broker and serves on the Dean’s Council of the Yale School of Architecture. He received both a BA and a MArch from Yale University. He has lectured and taught at Yale, MIT, NYU and Columbia.

JOE APICELLA joined MacQuesten in 2015 as our Managing Director of Development. He is an accomplished Senior Real Estate Executive responsible for the acquisition, approvals, financing and construction of more than 2 billion dollars’ worth of development in the tri-state area. He holds extensive expertise in managing all aspects of commercial real estate development including site compliance, legal documentation, governmental approvals/grant awards, regulatory compliance, lease negotiations and asset management. He has an established network extending to all levels of county, state and federal government. In 1998 he was awarded the Distinguished Service Award by Yonkers Business Improvement District, in 2007 the Distinguished Citizenship Award by Yonkers YWCA and in 2009 New Rochelle Businessman of the Year. Some of Mr. Apicella’s past experience includes:

Jerrold G. Bermingham has enjoyed a diverse career encompassing real estate brokerage, financial analysis and land development. For the past 24 years at National Realty & Development Corp., he has performed a range of services including property acquisitions, retail/office leasing and commercial and residential development. Founded more than 50 years ago, National Realty & Development Corp. (NRDC) has built a reputation as one of the leading full-service, privately-held real estate owner/ development firms across the eastern United States. NRDC has amassed a portfolio of 78 projects in 14 states, including large retail power centers, grocery-anchored community shopping centers, residential communities and corporate/ industrial business parks. Bermingham began his career at National Realty & Development Corp. in 1993 after seven years as a successful commercial real estate broker at Cushman & Wakefield. As Executive Vice President of Development/Acquisitions at NRDC, he is responsible for the identification and purchase of real estate for ground-up commercial and residential development, obtaining entitlements and redevelopment of existing shopping centers. He manages the approvals, engineering and design for the projects integrating outside professionals with the in-house construction, leasing and legal departments. Throughout his tenure, he has overseen the development and redevelopment of over four million square feet for dozens of projects which are valued at over 500 million dollars including WatermarkPointe, the firm’s current luxury condominium project in Westchester County, NY. In his capacity as President at WatermarkPointe, he has guided the project through zoning, sales and construction of 72 luxury waterfront condominiums with beachfront living and majestic panoramic views from Davenport Neck in New Rochelle, NY. Bermingham is a graduate of New York University where he obtained a Masters of Science with a concentration in Development. He is also a member of the foundation board of the State University of Oneonta where he obtained his undergraduate degree.

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.

Michael Gilbert has deep domain expertise, as well as public and private sector experience in the areas of energy and the environmental management. He has a passion for creating value in these areas at the nexus of technology, policy and finance. Michael has provided business strategy analysis and consultation to several companies in the areas of business strategy, algae, biomaterials, renewable energy, energy management, micro-grids, green buildings, carbon capture, remediation and sustainability. He also has experience with sustainability issues related to aviation lodging, oil sands and COSIA. Michael is currently Business Development Manager for Con Edison's energy efficiency and demand management programs for the commercial & industrial customers. With an unprecedented amount of funding available, the role affords the opportunity to help clients improve resilience, reduce costs, and operate in a more sustainable manner. He served earlier as VP of Strategy and Business Development for Global Green Solutions' waste-biomass and algae production businesses, working with customers, partners, and investors. In this role, he was intimately involved in the challenge of commercializing early stage sustainable technologies within a volatile business, technological and regulatory environment. Michael was previously the Director of Sustainability at Maine Pointe LLC, a management consulting firm specializing in global supply chain excellence. He served as both a technical and financial reviewer for several rounds of USDOE funding opportunities centered on energy and water. During his career at Pitney Bowes, he was the company's Energy and Environmental Manager, and subsequently, their Manager for Futures Strategy and Scenario Planning. Michael began his career at the EPA working on hazardous waste site remediation, as also for a stint working in Central and Eastern Europe on environmental technical assistance and capacity building. Michael is a licensed Professional Engineer, Certified Energy Manager and Certified Energy Auditor. He holds a BS in Ag & Bio Engineering and an MS Environmental Engineering from Cornell, and MBA in Finance from the University Of Connecticut School Of Business. He was recently appointed by the Mayor to the City of White Plains Sustainability and Environmental Enhancement Committee, and serves on a number of volunteer advisory boards within the community.

Seth Pinsky serves as Executive Vice President and Investment Manager of the RXR Metropolitan Emerging Market Strategy . In this role, Pinsky is leading RXR’s efforts to invest in “emerging opportunities” in New York City and the surrounding Tri-State region, focusing on asset classes and geographic regions that have historically been characterized by underinvestment, but that have significant growth potential due to planned or in-place infrastructure and other relevant characteristics. Prior to joining RXR, Pinsky served as Director of Mayor Bloomberg’s Special Initiative for Rebuilding and Resiliency, which developed a $20 billion plan to help neighborhoods stricken by Hurricane Sandy to rebuild smarter and stronger and to protect critical citywide systems and infrastructure from the likely impacts of climate change in coming decades. Pinsky also served as President of the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), a position to which he was appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2008, after joining the agency in 2003 as a vice president. During his tenure, NYCEDC became an international leader in the field of economic development, focusing both on transforming the city’s underlying economy and investing in its critical infrastructure. While at NYCEDC, Pinsky served as a lead negotiator on behalf of New York City for projects ranging from Yankee Stadium and Citifield, to the World Trade Center, to the acquisition of Hunters Point South in Queens, the largest middle-income housing development in the City since Starrett City. Among the initiatives advanced by NYCEDC under Pinsky’s leadership were the redevelopment of Willets Point in Queens, Coney Island in Brooklyn, the Homeport in Staten Island, and the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx, as well as the creation of a major new bioscience research park on City-owned land, north of Bellevue Hospital. Under Pinsky, NYCEDC also managed the construction of the first two phases of the High Line in Manhattan, launched a new East River Ferry service connecting Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan and announced and advanced plans for the world’s largest observation wheel in St. George in Staten Island. In the area of economic modernization, under Pinsky, NYCEDC created the Center for Economic Transformation (CET), which, in addition to launching a network of business incubators across the City that, at the time of Pinsky’s departure, housed more than 600 companies, developed and oversaw the Bloomberg Administration’s international Applied Sciences NYC competition. The Applied Sciences competition will result in a significant expansion of Columbia University’s engineering school, as well as the creation of a new engineering institute in Downtown Brooklyn led by NYU that will include CUNY, Carnegie Mellon University and others. It will also result in the creation of a $2 billion engineering campus on Roosevelt Island, being developed by Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Prior to joining the NYCEDC, Pinsky was an associate at the law firm of Cleary Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in the Real Estate practice and a financial analyst at James D. Wolfensohn Inc. He is a graduate of Columbia College, where he majored in Ancient History, and of Harvard Law School, and is an Adjunct Senior Research Scholar at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. Pinsky lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Angela and their children, Theo and Amelia.

David Brause is a member of the Brause family of real estate investors and the president of New York City-based family-run firm Brause Realty. He joined the family firm established by his grandfather, Jack Brause, of which his father Louis is president, in 1995. Since 2005, Brause has served as chairman of the Long Island City Business Improvement District. From 1992 to 1994, he worked as a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs, the investment bank. The Young Men’s/Women’s Real Estate Association of New York honored him as its 2010 Young Man of the Year. In 1992, Brause received a BS from The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, where he concentrated in finance. He married Cheryl Vigder in 1996. -MK

Mr. Aragon’s NYS Civil Service career spans 25 years and covers the City of New Rochelle, New York City, and upstate New York. Preceding his appointment as Commissioner for Development for the City of New Rochelle, Mr. Aragon served as Commissioner for Planning & Environmental Management for Sullivan County, NY and Deputy Commissioner for Preservation Services for NYC’s Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD). His broad expertise includes community development, economic development and revitalization, housing, planning, transportation, environmental management, and the expansion of arts program as a building block for economic development. Mr. Aragon has led the current renaissance in the City of New Rochelle, was the catalyst for the economic revitalization in Sullivan County and, while in NYC Government, was the creator of the “Fourth Street Arts Block” which solidified and preserved the cultural institutions in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Ellen Stuart from La Mama said it best when she wrote in 2006 to Mr. Aragon and said “Here we are out at sea. Thank you for helping to make it possible so that we can have a port to dock our dreams.” As Planning Commissioner in Sullivan County, Mr. Aragon led the Economic Development Corporation which acted as the catalyst for economic revitalization in the County. His extensive portfolio included the revitalization of main streets throughout the County, the advancement and repositioning of the Concord Hotel and Casino development, the continued growth of the Monticello Motor Club, the establishment and financing of the Dancing Cat Distillery, and a variety of additional creative and new job generating investment opportunities. Furthermore, Mr. Aragon was the County representative in Governor Cuomo’s Regional Economic Development Council and played a key role in the Mid-Hudson Region Sustainability Consortium. While responsible for half of HPD’s workforce, his contributions ranged from a variety of innovative management and technological tools designed to enhance performance and maximize productivity to budget, legislative, and political matters. His responsibilities included the enforcement of the Housing Maintenance code citywide while implementing innovative community and economic revitalization initiatives across New York City. Mr. Aragon was responsible for HPD’s neighborhood preservation efforts citywide in order to assist developers, owners, and tenants in preserving housing conditions and neighborhoods. Those efforts were augmented by the extensive work led by Mr. Aragon regarding the control and abatement of housing related narcotics activities, Housing Litigation initiatives, and the creation and management of the largest municipal housing education program in the country. Earlier in his career at HPD, Mr. Aragon was also responsible for the day to day management of the entire HPD-owned housing stock. Prior to HPD, Mr. Aragon served at New York City’s Department of Transportation as Assistant Commissioner for Capital Projects and as Assistant Commissioner for Planning & Urban Mobility. Mr. Aragon began his civil service career in New York City government as an architect and planner at the Department of Parks & Recreation and subsequently held positions of increased responsibility in that agency such as the Director of the Audit and re-Engineering unit and as Director of the Disciplinary unit. Mr. Aragon earned an MBA from Baruch College, CUNY and a BA in Architecture from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He is a resident of downtown New Rochelle.

As a real estate developer, Anthony oversees ELDs portfolio of homes and multi-family communities. As such, Anthony is involved in all aspects of the business, including site acquisition, financing, permitting, planning, design, construction, maintenance and leasing. In addition to his development and asset management experience, Anthony brings the unique perspective of an advertising professional. His extensive analytical background enables the organization the ability to identify emerging trends, reposition assets and capitalize on market opportunities.

A love of art, design and merchandising is what drove Oshi Rabin to launch the successful Mahlstedt Gallery brick-and-mortar location, and Mahlstedt Gallery Online. For over 15 years Rabin has participated in the international art and design market, focusing on trends devoted to lifestyle and artistic elements. Her innovative, unique and data-driven expertise in creative solutions led her to launch two successful e-commerce galleries in one year. During this time Oshi partnered with the largest online retailer in the world and maintained a top five ranking in category. She collaborated with the top Modern-Design flash sale website as well as the premier home design and art collectors’ websites in the world. In 2015 she launched an art advisory hub for corporate buyers and private collectors, providing A-Z solutions from consulting and curation to complex outdoor installations and murals. She collaborated with designers, architects, corporations, developers and homeowners to develop a body of artwork perfectly suited to project style and budget. As a tenured artist Oshi Rabin is proud to be a leading member of the international art community, successfully managing and representing over 70 established and emerging international artists.

Sadie McKeown is the President of The Community Preservation Corporation. In this capacity she leads the development and implementation of CPC’s growth strategy and oversees all of the company’s field offices, initiatives, and its equity and impact investing platforms. Sadie also works closely with the president of CPC Mortgage Company, CPC’s Agency mortgage lending subsidiary, to align all of the company’s products and tools under the overall CPC brand. Prior to her taking on the role of President in January 2022, she served as Executive Vice President and Head of Construction Lending and Initiatives where she led the company’s construction lending activities including the operation of its six New York field offices and its numerous initiatives. Sadie started her career at CPC as a Mortgage Originator in 1992, and has served as SVP, Director of Lending in CPC’s Hudson Valley Office; SVP, Director of Originations; and EVP, Chief Operating Officer. Throughout her career, Sadie has been a fierce advocate for moving the real estate industry and built environment towards carbon neutrality. Under her guidance, CPC created its innovative “underwriting efficiency” financing method that incorporates the potential savings from energy and water efficiency measures into the financing of first mortgages for multifamily buildings. She has overseen the development of numerous guides, tools, and case studies to help lenders, owners, and developers understand the benefits of energy efficient construction and retrofits; including CPC’s “Underwriting Efficiency Handbook” and its companion guide titled “Financing High-Performance” which focus on guiding lenders and developers through the underwriting efficiency methodology for both retrofit and new construction projects. Sadie also led CPC’s partnership with New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and private partners on a Passive House study that aimed to demystify the economics and environmental benefits of Passive House. Sadie currently sits on the boards of the New York State Housing Finance Agency, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), and New York City Energy Efficiency Corporation (NYCEEC), as well as on the New York State Climate Action Council’s Energy Efficiency and Housing Advisory Panel and the NYSERDA Technical Advisory Group for the Electrification Roadmap. Sadie earned her Master’s Degree in Human Services Administration with a concentration in Housing from Cornell University. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Communications from Fordham University.