Michaels Organization Announces VP
Kunal Chothani has joined The Michaels Organization as vice president of acquisitions.
The national firm is actively looking to acquire existing affordable and workforce properties, portfolios, and platforms. With Chothani’s addition, Michaels will be expanding its efforts to acquire existing affordable assets as well as identifying land and reuse opportunities that can be converted to affordable housing.
He previously worked at Stonehenge Partners, a New York City-focused institutional multifamily operator, where he was responsible for sourcing multifamily properties, portfolios, platforms, limited partners, and debt capital sources. He also managed the underwriting, due diligence, and financing of these transactions. Prior to his role there, Chothani was head of New York at Akelius Residential AB, an international multifamily owner and private foundation headquartered in Stockholm.
CommonBond Communities Names CFO
Angela Riley has joined CommonBond Communities as its new chief financial officer. In this role, she works with CommonBond’s board,
executive team, and staff to lead the organization’s strategic direction and mission by directing the finance, accounting, and IT teams with a lens of risk management and stewardship for the organization’s activities.
Riley was most recently the executive vice president, CFO, treasurer, and corporate secretary for St. Catherine University. She has broad-based expertise in finance, business development, corporate governance and administration, including IT, HR, legal, and compliance.
Headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, CommonBond Communities is a leading nonprofit developer and provider of affordable housing.
APAH Promotes Chiappa
Mike Chiappa has been elevated to vice president, real estate development, at the Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing (APAH).
He joined APAH in 2013 and has led financial underwriting efforts. Chiappa was the project manager for the organization’s first 4%/9% hybrid tax credit project for the 229-unit Columbia Hills, which was completed in 2018 and the first of its kind proposed to Virginia Housing. Most recently, he oversaw the underwriting and closing of Lucille & Bruce Terwilliger Place; Gilliam Place; Mt. Sterling Senior, APAH’s first project in Loudoun County; and Queens Court, slated to open mid-2021.
With APAH’s rapid expansion throughout the region and five projects under construction in 2021, Chiappa leads an experienced and growing eight-person development team. Charles Sims, recently promoted to senior project manager, joined the team in 2019 from Miami, where he worked at New Urban Development. Mitch Crispell, also senior project manager, came to APAH from BRIDGE Housing in San Francisco.
Chiappa succeeds Carmen Romero, who has assumed the new role of executive vice president and will oversee an expanded portfolio that includes resident services and public policy work.
Devine Becomes Principal of Rockabill Consulting
Katie Devine has been elevated to principal and a co-owner of Rockabill Consulting, joining managing principal and founder Niall Murray and principals Richard Brown and Tim Collins.
Devine has served as senior vice president since joining Rockabill in March 2018.
She has helped establish the New Jersey-based firm as a leader providing development and consulting services to the affordable and supportive housing community. Her recent work includes preserving and rehabilitating SRO supportive housing in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood and on the Upper West Side and partnering with a leading provider of homeless services to acquire and construct a new homeless shelter and co-located Federally Qualified Health Center.
Devine previously served as the director of housing development at Southside United HDFC in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Prior to moving to New York City, she worked for several years with established Chicago-based developers, including the acquisitions team at Evergreen Real Estate Group and as a vice president at UP Development, specializing in supportive housing.
LHP Capital Announces Promotion
Richard Emison has been promoted to vice president of construction for LHP Capital, a real estate development firm that specializes in multifamily affordable housing.
Emison, who has been with the Knoxville, Tennessee-based company since 2017, will oversee all preconstruction and design activities for LHP’s multifamily housing developments, including identifying potential issues, planning and scheduling, the scope of work, cost estimation, and preparing an analysis of needs for the job. He will work closely with the contractor and architect to ensure construction projects are delivered on time and within budget.
He has more than 25 years of experience in construction, including 17 years in preconstruction and estimating at Blaine Construction.
DCHFA Names Director of Housing Investments
Ikeogu Imo has joined the District of Columbia Housing Finance Agency (DCHFA) as senior director of housing investments.
He will oversee the development of new housing investment products, financing initiatives, and the innovation of existing DCHFA housing finance products that support the creation and preservation of affordable and workforce housing.
Prior to joining the agency, Imo served as deputy director—and later director—in the Division of Portfolio at the D.C. Department of General Services, where he managed more than 2,000 D.C. and Maryland real estate assets worth more than $17 billion. He has also worked as the director of finance and acquisition for Dantes Partners, an investment consultant and asset manager with Bozzuto Management Co., and a private investment manager with Prudential Capital Group.
Alta Housing Names CFO
Marc Garcia has been named chief financial officer at Alta Housing, an affordable housing developer based in Palo Alto, California.
He joins the organization with two decades of financial and accounting experience in real estate. Most recently, Garcia served as director of accounting for MidPen Housing Corp., where he was responsible for all accounting and financial aspects of a portfolio of 110 affordable housing communities all over the San Francisco Bay Area.
Alta Housing recently celebrated its 50-year anniversary, and the hiring of Garcia represents another important milestone for the organization. Alta Housing has a significant pipeline of new development projects with more than 450 new residential units in various stages of planning and development throughout the Bay Area.
CREA Hires Managing Director, New York Syndications
Anthony Richardson has joined CREA as managing director, New York syndications.
In addition to being responsible for syndications in the state, he will serve as a liaison between CREA’s syndications and acquisitions departments. Richardson also will play a role in maintaining relationships with local New York housing agencies and select agencies nationally. He comes to CREA with a background spanning over 13 years within allocating agencies in New York City.
Specializing in low-income housing tax credits (LIHTCs), CREA has raised over $7 billion in equity from its investors and manages funds on their behalf.
Toye Joins JPMorgan Chase
Industry veteran Vincent Toye has joined JPMorgan Chase as managing director, head of agency and off balance sheet lending for the commercial banking’s real estate business. He will be based in New York.
Toye will be responsible for growing a national team to provide the firm’s commercial real estate clients access to a broader suite of lending and credit solutions through government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) partnerships.
He brings to the role two decades of experience in commercial real estate finance, recently serving as executive vice president and group head for community lending and investment at Wells Fargo. Previously, he served as head of production for Wells Fargo Multifamily Capital, where he was responsible for managing the GSE originations team, increasing production, and overseeing relationships with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Red Stone Equity Partners Adds to Team
Red Stone Equity Partners has announced the addition of three new team members.
Stephen Palmaccio has been named director of dispositions. He is responsible for the development and execution of strategic plans for the disposition of assets within Red Stone’s LIHTC portfolio. Palmaccio has 16 years of experience in real estate investment, including 14 years of LIHTC experience. Before joining Red Stone, he was vice president of dispositions at Boston Capital.
Ben Jarvis has joined the firm as director of acquisitions and is responsible for sourcing and establishing new developer relationships as well as assisting developers with feasibility and financial structuring using LIHTCs in the Northeast and Midwest regions. During his 15-plus year tenure at Boston Capital, Jarvis originated and signed over $900,000,000 in tax credit transactions throughout the U.S. with a wide range of financing structures including tax-exempt bond transactions, government-subsidized and conventional loans, and rural development transactions. In addition, Jarvis has represented Boston Capital on various state qualified allocation plan advisory committees and other associations, including the New York State Association for Affordable Housing and the Illinois Housing Council.
Katie Vaughan has been named senior vice president of portfolio
management real estate. She is responsible for the ongoing monitoring and reporting of a designated portfolio of properties. Vaughan has over 20 years of experience in real estate, including 17 years of affordable housing asset management. She was also with Boston Capital, where she was responsible for the management and oversight of a large portfolio of LIHTC assets.
Merchants Capital Hires SVP
Denise Gomez Oluwo has been appointed senior vice president of GSE underwriting at mortgage banking company Merchants Capital.
Gomez Oluwo will work alongside the GSE underwriting team to underwrite loans, lead departmental objectives, cultivate client and GSE partner relations, and further develop talent on the Merchants underwriting team.
Prior to joining Merchants Capital, Gomez Oluwo most recently served as vice president, deputy chief underwriter for Walker & Dunlop. In this role, she managed a team of nine underwriters and analysts, providing credit review on over 100 closed Fannie Mae Small Loan and Freddie Mac SBL transactions in 2020. Additionally, she trained and oversaw a contract underwriting team to assist with excess volume and lead corporate objectives to retain high scores for annual Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac performance reviews.
KeyBank Adds to Community Development Lending Team
Reggie Fenn has joined KeyBank Community Development Lending and Investment (CDLI) as a senior banker to expand the firm’s activities in the Southeast. The move comes as KeyBank continues its commitment to affordable housing across the country, with a focus on expanding its CDLI platform in the Southeast region.
Fenn was a senior vice president with Wells Fargo and managed community lending activities throughout the Southeast. He has more than 20 years of experience as a banker spending time in Dallas and Atlanta. His areas of expertise include commercial real estate lending, affordable housing finance to include mixed-income/mixed-use finance involving public/private partnerships, and economic development.
He also was a director at the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, where he was responsible for affordable housing initiatives.
PGIM Names Hixon to Value-Add Team
Ola Hixon has joined PGIM Real Estate as an executive director and assistant portfolio manager for its U.S. value-add team. In this newly created role, she will contribute to asset management oversight, transactions, and fund strategy for the company’s Impact Value Partners (IVP) fund, one of the first institutionally managed woman-led impact investing funds in the industry.
IVP targets investments in affordable housing and mixed-use transformative developments and has a dual mandate of achieving market-rate financial returns while creating healthy, safe, and affordable communities for people with moderate and low incomes. The fund is focused on investments in underpriced locations across major U.S. markets with anticipated population and economic growth.
In addition, Hixon will serve as an assistant portfolio manager for PGIM Real Estate’s value-add U.S. Property Fund (USPF) series and will support the deployment of the $363 million in capital raised for USPF VI.
Hixon brings to her role more than 15 years of real estate investment management experience, including involvement in $50 billion in transactions volume during her career. Most recently, she was a senior principal at KKR & Co.
Enterprise Announces Promotion
David Edwards has been promoted to chief information officer at Enterprise Community Partners, where he will oversee the strategic direction and operational management of the information technology backbone for Enterprise as well as the optimization of its business operations platforms, back-office solutions, and core technology infrastructure.
Edwards is based in Enterprise’s Columbia, Maryland, headquarters, where he previously served as vice president, IT Infrastructure.
He joined Enterprise in July 2019 and helped oversee key technology updates at Enterprise, including a companywide conversion to Zoom and Microsoft Teams, which enabled a seamless transition to remote work. He also led the assessment and upgrade of all office internet connections that will enhance Enterprise’s in-office experience upon return.
