East Bay State of the Market

Riaz Taplin has been thinking about workforce housing for most of his professional life. Growing up in a real estate family, Riaz detoured early in his career from the family business to develop his own style by founding a design/build firm and developing over 50 ultra-luxury residences in the Bay Area. Completing his last project just before the great recession, Riaz refocused his vision to workforce housing in Oakland. Over the next decade, Riaz built a portfolio of over 1,300 units in the workforce housing category. In the process, Riaz consistently worked to innovate market-rate approaches to workforce housing, also known as naturally-occurring affordable housing. In successive projects and ventures, Riaz explored co-living, adaptive reuse micro-units, student housing, and traditional ground-up construction – all of which led to the firm’s custom workforce housing solution – the ABD Studio. Today, Riaz leads Riaz Capital, a vertically integrated workforce housing developer and institutional-grade sponsor with a core team of over fifty professionals managing a portfolio of over 1,300 units, and with over 1,000 residences in the pipeline. Riaz is a board member of the Oakland Promise, the urban planning think tank SPUR, and co-chair of the American India Foundation SF Bay Area board. He earned a B.A. in Economic History from the London School of Economics.

Denise Pinkston has over 30 years of experience in real estate and development including acquisitions, asset and construction management, marketing, leasing, planning/entitlements, transit and green building, planning management, and public affairs. Ms. Pinkston was named one of the Bay Area’s Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business by the San Francisco Business Times in 2012, 2013, 2016 and was named to their Forever Influential Honor Roll in 2014. Prior to TMG: Ms. Pinkston directed Current Planning, Code Enforcement, Housing, and Redevelopment as the Marin County Planning Services Coordinator. She served as a zoning officer, planning commissioner, chamber of commerce board member, and instructor at SFSU and Mills College. Ms. Pinkston cares deeply about improving housing and transportation programs and policies and has served in the following policy leadership roles: Board Chair of MVGO and EmeryGoRound shuttles; Chair Bay Area Council Housing Committee Chair &Vice Chair Berkeley Zoning Board Moderator, Technical Committee, MTC Committee to House the Bay Area (CASA) Member SPUR Housing Committee Technical advisor on State bills to ease rules for ADUs and Student Housing Ms. Pinkston attended the University of California at Berkeley where she earned a B.A. in History, and a Masters in City and Regional Planning.

Chris Freise is Managing Partner & Co-Founder at REDCO Development. Prior to launching REDCO, Chris served as Managing Partner of Lift Partners, an operating platform that invested $300M+ dollars during its 4-year history on behalf of institutional investors Westbrook Partners, PCCP, Morgan Stanley and a confidential Ivy League endowment with a $50M discretionary fund. While at Lift, Chris lead all acquisition, development and construction efforts. Prior to that he served as a Transactions Director at LBA Realty working on a 11 million square foot portfolio in Northern California including acquisitions, development, leasing and dispositions. LBA Realty is a $6 billion fund advisor focused primarily on office and industrial value-add investments along the West Coast. Chris learned ground-up development working as Development Manager at Vulcan Real Estate in Seattle and worked on 3 million square feet of ground up development in Vulcan’s South Lake Union project including Amazon’s Corporate Headquarters and several high rise residential projects. He began his career working at RREEF as an analyst. Chris holds a B.S. and M.S. in Civil Engineering from Stanford University and sits on the SF NAIOP Chapter Programs & Membership Committees and the Downtown San Jose PBID board. When not hanging with his daughter Finley and wife Marie, Chris is an active water enthusiast including surfing/kitesurfing and 49ers/Oakland A's fan.

Prior to co-founding Long Market Property Partners in 2013, Daniel was employed by Seligman Western Enterprises for over 12 years as Director of Acquisitions. During his tenure, he closed over $600 million of capital transactions where he oversaw the underwriting, financing, and ownership transitions of these assets. Daniel has acquired retail and office assets in San Francisco, Hawaii, Nevada, Texas, and Southern California. Due to the hands-on operational environment at Seligman Western, Daniel gained experience with ground-up development and entitlements, along with extensive management and leasing. Daniel is a graduate of the University of Colorado Leeds School of Business.

Jackie is the Director at NINE dot ARTS, helping us grow our footprint while educating the real estate industry about our creative services and the value of art and culture in the built environment. With over ten years of business development experience with a focus in the life sciences market, Jackie has helped dozens of organizations expand into new markets and reach new targets. A New Hampshire native, Jackie has spent the last 7 years in sunny California. Outside of work, you can find her exploring the outdoors or enjoying theatre, visual art, and music.

Alicia Guerra has developed a multi-disciplinary practice focused on local, state, and federal land use entitlement and permitting and environmental review for a broad sector of private industry, developers, and public agencies. Ms. Guerra’s practice often involves complex and controversial projects at all levels of the administrative process including due diligence, land use entitlements, development agreements, disposition and development agreements, permitting advice, and counsel for water resources, environmental compliance, and wetlands natural resources. She has handled all aspects of these substantive areas, from advising private and public sector clients regarding the applicability of the law, to guiding clients through a permitting or entitlement process at the local, state or federal level.

Nhan Nguyen Le is the CEO and Managing Principal of Valiance Capital, a real estate private equity firm focused on multifamily and student housing value-add and development. Nhan leads the firm’s strategic vision, investment decisions, and all verticals of the firm’s operations. With over 13 years of real estate investment experience in the East Bay market, Nhan has executed over $250 million of projects across 40 deals. Currently, he is responsible for driving one of the most highly anticipated mid-rise developments in Berkeley, an 80,000 SF, Class A Student Housing community in the Southside district located 1 block away from UC Berkeley Campus. Over the span of a decade, he has grown Valiance from a duplex to over $200M AUM and $200M in the pipeline with the aim to becoming one of largest local suppliers of housing for UC Berkeley students. Real estate investing was the vehicle to help Nhan bring his family out of poverty and into financial independence; now, he is building a platform to create similar opportunities for others. His mission is to help people build financial freedom and sustainable wealth through long-term investment and tax strategies. He prides himself on helping everyday investors access institutional-grade real estate which has historically only been accessible for the wealthiest and most-connected investors. Nhan is also pushing new horizons with social media to expand his reach and impact to a wider audience who are pursuing dreams of financial prosperity in the real estate sector. Nhan was the first member of his family tree to graduate from a 4-year university, having attended the University of California, Berkeley as a Gates Millennium Scholar with a full-ride scholarship. Nhan intends to give back to his alma mater by addressing the most severe issue the university is experiencing -- housing. Berkeley has been home for Nhan for nearly 18 years. He currently lives on College Ave with his Shiloh Shepherd, Bruno.

Ryan M. Collins is Senior Vice President and head of EastGroup’s Western region. He is responsible for the Company’s operations in our Arizona, California, Nevada, and Colorado markets. Prior to joining EastGroup in May of 2017, Mr. Collins served as Vice President and Asset Manager for Clarion Partners. Mr. Collins received his Bachelor of Business Administration from the McCombs Business School at the University of Texas.

Charles “CJ” Higley is a real estate generalist. His practice is focused on real estate development, land use entitlements (a notoriously complex undertaking in the Bay Area), and construction law. With respect to the latter, CJ has a particular expertise in negotiating contracts, ranging from architect’s agreements to the contracts with consultants and contractors that are typical for a development. The projects in which he’s been involved have been equally diverse, including large-scale residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional developments. Sixteen years of experience have also given CJ an intricate matrix of relationships in the political, administrative, and real estate communities of San Francisco that has inured to the benefit of his clients. City planning staff, the Board of Supervisors, and the larger community find him relatable and pragmatic. He’s someone they can work with to find common ground, and help move a project forward. CJ's knowledge of the real estate and construction players in San Francisco saves his clients time and money, and improves the odds of success. He knows the issues that are sensitive, and can either avoid or prepare for them, depending on the situation. The acuteness of the Bay Area housing shortage has altered the process of permitting and obtaining the necessary entitlements for construction projects, particularly for developers engaged in affordable housing projects. The ability to delay, or in some cases, stop a project through a prolonged environmental review process is decreasing, and the political landscape is shifting towards streamlining the process, and sometimes exempting it from environmental review altogether. In this context, an experienced entitlement attorney with relationships throughout the various administrative bodies involved in the development process is invaluable, particularly when augmented by expertise in environmental law. By integrating experience, expertise and the versatility of an attorney who’s been actively engaged in a wide variety of projects, CJ is a significant competitive asset for his real estate and construction clients. CJ serves on the Housing Policy Board for San Francisco Planning and Urban Research (SPUR) and is a member of the Legislative Committee for San Francisco Housing Action Coalition (SFHAC). He has served on the Legislative Committee of the Environmental Section of the State Bar of California. He was recognized in The Legal 500 United States 2016 Land Use / Zoning practice area. He was recognized among the Northern California Super Lawyers - Rising Stars 2013. CJ has been selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America in the area of Real Estate Law (2021). CJ received a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law in 2002, where he served as an articles editor for Ecology Law Quarterly, and a Masters of Studies in Environmental Law (M.S.E.L.), magna cum laude, from Vermont Law School in 2001. He earned his B.A. from the University of Virginia in 1995.