The Future of South Jersey

Mr. Cangelosi serves as Vice President of Development for The Michaels Organization and is responsible for all aspects of development activity including acquisitions, planning, land use approvals, and development financing. Mr. Cangelosi concentrates his development activities in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, and Connecticut. Mr. Cangelosi has over 12 years of experience in structuring real estate transactions, particularly those that combine low-income housing tax credits, historic rehabilitation tax credits, HOME, CDBG, Choice Neighborhoods Implementation Funds, with other state, county, local, and private financing sources. Mr. Cangelosi has led award-winning development efforts on over 1,600 affordable housing units with more than $600M in investments, in projects including adaptive historic redevelopment, multi-phase townhomes, and midrise senior buildings. Prior to joining The Michaels Organization, Mr. Cangelosi served as Project Director for Conifer Realty, LLC where he contributed to the development of over 870 Low-Income Housing Tax Credit rental units in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and assisted in raising approximately $250 million to finance such effort. Mr. Cangelosi also worked with the Camden County Improvement Authority as Senior Project Coordinator where he managed the financing and development for various governmental and private stakeholders. Mr. Cangelosi holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Georgetown University and completed coursework within Rutgers University’s Master of Business Administration program. Mr. Cangelosi is a licensed real estate associate in New Jersey and Member at Urban Land Institute of Philadelphia/South Jersey. In November of 2018, Mr. Cangelosi was recognized as a national finalist for ‘One to Watch’ Multifamily Pillars of the Industry Awards by the National Home Builders Association.

Joe Myers was born and raised in Riverton, NJ. He attended Trenton State College in Ewing, NJ and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science; and attended graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania where he obtained two masters in two years (masters of government administration from the Samuel Fels Center of Government and masters of arts in political science). In 1999, Mr. Myers immediately started working as a graduate intern at Cooper’s Ferry Partnership (formerly Cooper’s Ferry Development Association) - a private non-profit corporation dedicating towards revitalizing Camden City. Upon graduation in the spring of 2000, Mr. Myers started employment as a full time project manager. His project portfolio included: financial closeout of the $9 million Camden Children’s Garden; design and construction of $4.5 million roadway infrastructure around Adventure Aquarium called the Waterfront Roads Phase One; design and construction of $4 million (state and federal funds) roadway infrastructure north of the Adventure Aquarium called the Waterfront Roads Phase Two; design and construction of $1.9 million (state and private funds) children’s fountain park called Aquarium Fountain Park; $400,000 streetscape and signal upgrade project in the downtown (Second Street Streetscape Improvement Project); annual landscaping and maintenance project in the downtown waterfront; a neighborhood infrastructure assessment; traffic studies; and several environmental investigative and remediation of brownfield sites. In 2009, Mr. Myers was promoted to vice president of operations where his portfolio included the oversight of $4 million of an annual operating budget and a multi-million dollar special project budget (which includes planning, design, and/construction of a variety of projects using local, county, state, and federal funding). As part of this, Mr. Myers currently manages a staff of fourteen professionals; coordinates the organization’s foundation portfolio; and oversees several outside professional service contracts, including insurance, legal, engineering, governmental affairs, public relations, accounting, and auditing in addition to our annual consulting contract with the Parking Authority of Camden City. Mr. Myers lives in Bordentown City with his wife and two kids.

Freeholder Director Louis Cappelli, Jr. has been a public servant for over thirty years. He is married to Laura and has seven children. Lou has been a practicing attorney since 1987. After serving on the school board in his hometown of Collingswood for six years, Lou spent another 10 as borough commissioner. He was first elected to the Camden County Board of Freeholders in 2003, and has been its director since 2006. Lou’s legal acumen is at the root of a decade-plus tenure with the body, through which he has driven key public policy changes in finance, public health, and public safety issues. While helping to spur on economic redevelopment in Camden County, Lou has also seen to the safety of its residents, building the Camden County Police Department while leveling some 600 unsafe structures in Camden. Under Lou, the county has upgraded its emergency 9-1-1 system, and merged its mental health and substance abuse programs. The Freeholder Director has also championed the use of life-saving Naloxone as a component of a comprehensive anti-opioid strategy. Lou is partner in the law firm of Florio, Perrucci, Steinhardt & Cappelli, LLC. since 2008. He serves on the board of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission and is a member of the Greater Camden Partnership. Accolades for his career of county government service include having been named 2011 “Freeholder of the Year” by the New Jersey Conference of Mayors, being awarded the South Jersey Freeholder’s Associations Southern Star Award in 2012, and being named the 2015 Public Sector South Jerseyan of the Year by the Walter Rand Institute for Public Affairs at Rutgers University-Camden.

Joel Bergstein is the President of Lincoln Equities Group (LEG), one of the Northeast's leading full-service real estate companies. Bergstein joined the company more than 32 years ago, spearheading the organization’s acquisition and development initiatives. He currently leads the firm’s large scale development platform, orchestrating major residential and industrial land development projects in the New York / New Jersey metro area. Bergstein developed LEG’s current operating partner platform, leveraging domestic and international opportunities with private equity and pension funds. Bergstein is a founding partner and active participant in LEG’s $700M European property investment platform. Some of his standout development projects include Halletts Point in Astoria, NY, where LEG transformed a seven acre waterfront site into 2,400 residential apartment units; 5 Giralda in Madison, NJ, a 431,000 square-foot property, that was modernized to become Allergan’s U.S. headquarters; and in early 2018, LEG closed on a 152 acre waterfront site in Bayonne, NJ, where 1.4M square-feet of e-commerce logistics warehousing will be developed to bolster trade with the Port of New York and New Jersey. Lincoln has formed a partnership with Bruce Eichner’s Continuum Company to develop a mixed-income residential complex in Crown Heights, NY. It will be a 50/50 market and workforce development project to bring hundreds of needed housing units for middle and working class families in New York City. Bergstein is also leading the development and approval process for 1,500 new residential units in Jersey City including the construction of a light rail station. Bergstein serves on numerous real estate advisory boards and is a speaker and frequent commentator in real estate trade and business media in addition to his philanthropic work.

A native of Philadelphia and a Temple University graduate, John is committed to revitalizing the city we all love. John was first exposed to large scale development initiatives through an internship in the Rendell Admin. in the mid-90’s. During this time he became consumed with the idea that smart economic development initiatives are the key to not only sustaining the region, but advancing it. After losing a race for City Council, he realized that urban revitalization efforts did not have to come strictly at the hands of government, but were achievable through the private sector, with smart development and community buy in – and so, LPMG was born.

Chris Ressa joined DLC in 2007. As Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Ressa is responsible for overseeing all tenant facing operations including leasing, property management, construction and marketing on all DLC owned and third-party managed assets. During his tenure at DLC, his relationships, leasing ability, and leadership have led to numerous successful repositioning of assets. His most notable leasing transactions have included deals with TJX, Ross Dress for Less, Burlington, Dick’s Sporting Goods, The Kroger Company, Best Buy, Ulta, LA Fitness and Planet Fitness.Prior to coming to DLC, he worked for Ashkenazy Acquisitions as a Regional Leasing Manager responsible for all new and renewal leases in a portfolio of approximately 3.5 million square feet of retail real estate including regional malls, grocery-anchored centers, power centers, and street retail. His career started at The Sherwin-Williams Company as a Real Estate Manager handling existing store renewals, and new stores in the Eastern Division Region. In addition to new store real estate, Mr. Ressa’s role involved handling the real estate for district/regional offices as well as warehousing locations for Sherwin-Williams. Mr. Ressa received a BA in economics from Rutgers University in 2005. Mr. Ressa is an active member of the ICSC, received his CLS (Certified Leasing Specialist) in 2010 and in December 2012 became a member of the ICSC CLS Committee.