By The Editors of The Commercial Observer

Developer Don Peebles has a dream to pull off a 2 million-square-foot, mixed-use giant across from the Javits Center that he says will be the most inclusive skyscraper in U.S. history

On the West Side of Manhattan, just across from the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, sits a 1.2-acre site. A piece of land of that size is like gold dust in Manhattan — and Don Peebles has big plans for it.

And he has named it Affirmation Tower. A development team comprised of Peebles’ Peebles Corporation; Cheryl McKissack Daniel, president and CEO of McKissack & McKissack; Craig Livingston, managing partner of Exact Capital; and Steven Witkoff, chairman and CEO of Witkoff, have proposed a 2 million-square-foot mixed-use development for the vacant site.

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Credit: Commercial Observer

By Jon Banister, Bisnow Deputy East Coast Editor

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation has selected a pair of Black-owned firms to build a 21-story development on state-owned land in downtown Boston, its first selection using a new equity-focused scoring model.

The MassDOT board on Wednesday approved the selection of the team led by Peebles Corp. and Genesis Cos., one of six teams that bid on the 1.4-acre site, the Boston Globe reported.

The site, known as Parcel 25, sits at the intersection Kneeland and Lincoln streets, less than a half-mile from South Station. The vacant lot sitting above I-93 was left over from the Big Dig and was unsuccessfully put out to developers in 2016 before this latest process, according to the Globe.

"It is filling in this gap and connecting the neighborhood better, making it more accessible and creating some more life there," Peebles Corp. founder and CEO Don Peebles told Bisnow in an interview Thursday.

The Peebles-Genesis team plans to build 585K SF across 21 stories, including 309K SF of lab and research space, 218 apartments on the upper floors and ground-floor retail. About 40% of the apartments are planned to be income-restricted.

The team is ground-leasing the site from the state and paying $61.5M upfront and then an annual rent starting at $1M, which escalates by 2.5% every year for 99 years, a price Peebles said will eventually total more than $500M. He said the project's life sciences component will cover the price and subsidize the affordable units, given the high demand for lab space in Boston.

"We tried to create a financially viable project that also addresses the need for affordable housing, and so we were able to do that," Peebles said. "In order for us to make a dent in housing affordability, the private sector and developers are going to have to take more initiative and use more creativity."

The development still needs to go through entitlements and permitting. Peebles said the team aims to break ground in March 2024 and deliver the project in Q3 2026.

MassDOT selected the developers from a group of six competing teams that also included a joint venture of Alexandria Real Estate Equities and National Development, a joint venture of Brookfield Properties and Menkiti Group, BioMed Realty, Lupoli Cos. and Trinity Financial Inc.

The agency for the first time used a strategy called the Massport Model that factors the diversity of the bidders as 25% of the scoring, along with other factors, including the purchase price, the mix of uses and the design. In addition to the two New York-based developers being Black-owned firms, Peebles said his team also includes architecture and construction firms owned by people of color.

"The commonwealth of Massachussets under Gov. [Charlie] Baker is certainly committed to economic inclusion," Peebles said. "There's a great opportunity going forward in the commonwealth to do significant business for minority firms. That’s one of the things we focused on, is having a very diverse and talented team, and we’re real proud of it."

Credit: Bisnow

By Tanya A. Christian

There are roughly 300 skyscrapers sprawled across the iconic New York City skyline. And to date, not one has been built by a majority Black team.  That’s despite New York ranking among the most diverse cities in the country, and having the largest number of people reporting as Black — roughly 3.3 million — according to the latest U.S. Census.
“Think about that,” real estate entrepreneur Don Peebles offers. “All the skyscrapers in the skyline of New York City —all of them — not one has been built by a Black developer, not one has been constructed by a Black contractor, or a construction company, and only one had any element of design by a Black architect, and that's fairly recent.”

Peebles is part of a collaborative of savvy developers working to disrupt the city’s status quo by erecting the first skyscraper built by a majority Black team. And they plan to call it Affirmation Tower. The project, according to Peebles and partner in the initiative, Craig Livingston, would serve as a towering example of Black excellency.

“This is an opportunity to really create a paradigm shift and to start to build a Black economy that Black companies actually participate in and flourish,” Livingston tells EBONY.  The managing partner at Exact Capital adds that the project requires intentionality. “On our side, as owners of a project, we can decide to spend a billion dollars with Black and Brown companies and for the economics to be shared and to be dissipated throughout specific communities,” Livingston explains. “But the intentionality also has to be there on the government side.”

Since 2005 New York state has strived to level the playing field in terms of development by instituting the M/BWE (Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprise) program. Through this, minority and women entrepreneurs have greater access to government contracts to grow their businesses. According to ny.gov, more than 9,200 businesses have taken advantage of the certification program resulting in more than $21 billion in state contracts. And still, none of these projects have utilized the program to the extent that Affirmation Tower hopes to.

The project involving Peebles and Livingston has on board the oldest Black construction and design company in the country, helmed by Cheryl McKissack, and as its architect, Sir David Adjaye. Collectively, Peebles says the 80 percent Black-owned team is working to meet a very specific moment in this country’s history — rebounding from a global pandemic and the financial decimation that has taken place as a result of it.

“Looking at the wealth disparity that has been created, thinking ahead to how New York comes back, and then addressing the protesting and the demand for racial, economic and criminal justice in our country, we felt it important to build something that could meet those moments,” says Peebles.

It’s why Affirmation Tower is being designed as the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, standing at 1,663 feet tall and spanning roughly 1.2 acres. Housed inside would be the headquarters for the NAACP, at least two hotels, office space and an entertainment complex. Peebles likens the project and its timing to the erection of the Empire State Building following the Great Depression and the Freedom Tower after 911. The Peebles Corp CEO sees it as a demonstration that New York and America is coming back.

Despite its optimistic goal, the project is experiencing a major hurdle. The idea for Affirmation Tower was conceived after New York’s former governor Andrew Cuomo put out a call for proposals for the Hudson Yards development site. But since his ousting, New York’s new governor, Kathy Hochul, has rescinded the RFP, stating that she would instead like to use the site for affordable housing.

“I feel that this idea of making our people comfortable with the disproportionate burden of poverty, the poor education that our young people are victimized by, and the criminal justice system that criminalizes our young people, for the most simplistic mistakes is just unacceptable,” Peebles says of the decision. “What we need to do is to change this burden of poverty and lift this burden of poverty off of our people, so that we don't need as many social services and government support — that we can do it for ourselves. And that means that we have to grow black businesses.”

Multiple attempts to reach the governor for comment were unsuccessful. But while the team behind Affirmation Tower finds the decision disappointing, they view it as a temporary setback.

“We view this award as inevitable and we're looking at this pause as an opportunity for greater alignment with the Governor's priorities,” Livingston asserts. “Given the tremendous benefits that Affirmation Tower presents to the state in terms of tax revenue, and to the community — when you look at what's happening in the world of construction and the overall New York economy — we need to have a catalyst for economic growth and Affirmation Tower is certainly poised to do that.” Livingston sees this “temporary pause” as an opportunity to have greater alignment with the governor's vision.”

Peebles believes that the plans they once had will reach fruition and with it will come an opportunity for real economic justice. “As Dr. King once said, justice too long delayed is justice denied,” Peebles quotes. “And the same goes for economic justice.”

While more Black entrepreneurs have been able to participate in America’s growing economy, Peebles believes the real estate industry is no further along than when he started. He feels a personal obligation to make sure this changes for future generations. “If we’re not the ones to do it, then who's going to do it? And if it's not at this time, when?”

Credit: Ebony

By Jessica Cherner

The island of Manhattan boasts so many soaring towers, that it’s hardly news when a new one shoots up—even if its spire pierces the clouds. That said, now and then, there’s an exception in the form of an ambitious architectural masterpiece, like the west side’s new 90-story Affirmation Tower, a five-tiered, terrazzo-clad skyscraper that, upon closer inspection, appears to be upside down. Developed by Don Peebles, the chief operating officer at the Peebles Corporation, and designed by AD100 architect Sir David Adjaye, Affirmation Tower is as symbolic as it is enormous (1,663 feet tall and two million square feet.) Not only is the statuesque mixed-use building developed, built, and funded by Black- and female-owned businesses, but its tenants will be minority entrepreneurs (with the exception of the local NAACP offices, among Affirmation Tower’s earliest tenants to move in).

The monumental tower, which will be moving into one of Manhattan’s last few acres of unoccupied land, gives Manhattanites another reason to venture toward the Hudson River. After all, there’s nothing anyone with an aching curiosity couldn’t do there: The Affirmation Tower will feature a skating rink, at least two hotels, an entertainment complex, and a rooftop eatery and ballroom.

Here are five reasons why the Affirmation Tower is shaking up New York’s real estate game in a big way:

A Majority-Black Team Is Leading the Project
Developed by Don Peebles and designed by Ghanaian British architect Sir David Adjaye, Affirmation Tower is the work of a majority-Black team, including those funding the project. “A project like Affirmation Tower is long overdue for New York City. This project will be a beacon of diversity for generations to come,” Peebles notes, “People of color and women make up the vast majority of this city’s population, but that representation is not reflected in the current architectural and development landscape. It is an all too rare opportunity for us to make the world’s most iconic skyline more inclusive than it’s ever been before.”

It’s the Tallest Building in New York City
Manhattan’s seemingly unchanging skyline has been dotted with iconic structures—the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, and, as of 2014, One World Trade Center—but there’s a proverbial new kid on the block (or rather a 1.2-acre plot of state-owned land) that’s giving everyone across the Hudson something fabulous over which to fawn. Affirmation Tower is shaping up to be the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, but the architect and developer held back for one specific reason: September 11, 2001. Out of respect for the 2,996 people who lost their lives on one of New York’s most tragic days, the team decided to make Affirmation Tower slightly shorter by spire height than One World Trade Center, a stunning tribute of remembrance and compassion. That said, the tower is taller by floor.

Minority- and Female-Owned Companies Are at the Forefront
The Affirmation Tower is more about reviving the American dream than it is about anything else. The team was keen on making such a dream accessible to everyone—especially those whose visions and voices tend to fall to the wayside, like those of women and people of color. The project’s partners agreed that they’d give more than 30% of construction work to minority and female contractors. They’re serious about New York City being a melting pot of economic and cultural inclusion—especially when it comes to the sites that represent the city itself.

Architect Sir David Adjaye Designed It
Sir David Adjaye is no stranger to eye-catching structures around the world—the Africa Institute in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates; The Webster in Los Angeles, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., to name a few—and his newest outpost fits in his repertoire of unusual, dramatic structures that are unequivocally backed by a powerful narrative. Adjaye certainly doesn’t have a palette or style to which he adheres, but he does have a signature: exceptionally bizarre shapes and demure yet noteworthy palettes. His newest project, Affirmation Tower, checks all of the boxes: It comprises five rectangular boxes that grow in size (from 15,000 to 30,000 square feet) as they climb toward the top of the tower. It almost looks like it may tip over on a windy day.

It’s an Ode to Black Culture
The boxes are clad in floor-to-ceiling glass windows that sit within a milky white terrazzo façade whose shape mimics afro picks, a subtle tribute to Black culture. Peebles admitted that he sees himself in the shape, as he carried such picks around during his early days in New York throughout the 1970s. The massive tower will house quite a few businesses, making Affirmation a destination for hospitality, retail, and commercial businesses (plus visitors who enjoy gushing over modern architecture), but perhaps the place people may enjoy the most is the plaza garden where beautiful tributes to historically significant Black New Yorkers stand proud.

Credit: Architectural Digest

By Anne Kadet

An architecturally ambitious skyscraper proposed for Manhattan’s West Side would be by one measure the tallest in the Western Hemisphere, and a property its Black developer hopes would be symbolic.

Read the original article in The Wall Street Journal

By Jeffrey McKinney

Two renowned Black developers are proceeding with plans on Angels Landing, a new $2 billion luxury hotel in downtown Los Angeles projected to be an economic boom for the nation’s second-largest city.

Angels Landing will include two towers, each anchored by five-star hotels, according to a news release. Plus, the development will feature an expansive modern urban park known as Angels Landing Plaza. It is geared to serve as a pedestrian-centered, transit-adjacent, open space environment downtown.

The project in LA’s Bunker Hill neighborhood is being developed by Victor MacFarlane of MacFarlane Partners and R. Donahue Peebles of The Peebles Corp. They are majority-owner principals of Angels Landing Partners L.L.C., which is conceiving, designing, building, and operating Angels Landing.

MacFarlane Partners and Peebles are BE 100s companies, an annual listing of the top Black-owned businesses in the nation.

Economically, more than 8,300 new jobs will be created during Angels Landing’s project design and construction, an analysis by BJH Advisors shows. The New York City-based firm’s report estimates that Angels Landing would additionally create over 800 permanent jobs in downtown LA. The analysis further reported an estimated 500 jobs would be created by vendors in the LA County region providing goods and services to the two luxury hotels.

Moreover, the analysis projects Angels Landing would give L.A.’s local economy a $1.6 billion boost and contribute $731 million to local worker’s earnings during its construction. And the project would bring an estimated $12 million in recurring tax revenues and $2.4 million annually in local property tax revenues.

Victor B. MacFarlane, chairman and CEO, MacFarlane Partners, commented on the project.

“The foundation of our business has always been to strengthen communities where we do business,” he stated. “We believe we can help communities prosper. We know Angels Landing will have a significant positive impact on L.A.’s economy. The ripple effect of Angels Landing’s substantial economic and employment activity will reverberate throughout L.A. County by providing good-paying union jobs to construct our hotel project and extensive career opportunities when the project is completed, and its hotels are open to the public. We have spent more than $10 million to move our project forward. We’re not letting the coronavirus pandemic slow us down. We anticipate our project entitlement this year.”

Peebles Corp. Chairman and CEO R. Donahue Peebles, stated, “Equity and inclusion are bedrock principles at the Peebles Corporation. My success is predicated on opportunities I received because of those two important tenets. I have built an impressive collection of commercial and residential projects in New York, Washington, D.C., Miami, and other U.S. cities.

“In each city, I’ve been most excited about using my influence to empower Black-owned, Latino-owned, and women-owned business leaders. My company works diligently to help minority-owned enterprises grow their businesses through procurement contracts established through our development projects.”

Angels Landings also is expected to create new opportunities for Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprises (MWBE) and professionals.

Peebles added, “With Angels Landing, the transformative impact of empowerment and economic inclusion will be felt by an array of businesses, including Latino- and Asian-owned businesses. We have committed to a goal of 30% M/WBE contracting across the board for our project. We’re raising the bar for economic inclusion for development projects in Los Angeles.”

Credit: Black Enterprise

By Dominic-Madori Davis

In real estate, there are NIMBYs and YIMBYs, and Donahue Peebles III knows where he stands.

For decades, "NIMBY," which stands for "not in my backyard," referred to homeowners who oppose nearby development. The "YIMBY," naturally, says yes to the same proposition. To hear Donahue Peebles III tell it, more development won't just be good for his family's company — he's a real-estate development heir — but also a key to civil-rights progress in the Biden era.

"As developers, we have such an outsized effect on the world in which everyday folks live, far more than an options trader would or your Wall Street executive," Peebles told Insider. "Everybody, every day, interfaces with real estate, multiple times a day."

Peebles works at Peebles Corporation, which was founded by his father, Donald Peebles II, in 1983 and has grown into of the nation's largest real-estate investing and developing firms, with a portfolio topping $8 billion. The company made his father one of the richest Black real estate developers in the US, with a net worth estimated at over $700 million.

The Peebles Corporation utilizes public-private partnerships to develop properties with civic interests in mind, focused primarily on the New York, Washington DC, Miami, and Los Angeles markets. It specializes in residential, hospitality, retail, and mixed-use commercial properties.

Peebles is his father's chief of staff, a position he has held since early last year. He said he has no interest in separating himself from his father's legacy, saying there is "so much value" in being allowed to help build on that.

In an interview with Insider, Peebles spoke about the affordable housing crisis, how his company is trying to help curb the effects of gentrification, and what he's expecting under a Biden presidency.

Peebles has been working for his father's firm since his senior summer in high school. Born in Washington, DC, Peebles spent his childhood in South Florida and attended high school in New York before matriculating to Columbia University to study economics.

"My real-estate education happened simultaneously with my regular education," he said. "As a little kid, you always want to go to McDonald's and get a McFlurry or go to your friends' house early on a Saturday before basketball practice. My father would say, 'Sure, but I need you to learn the value of this building first.'"

To Peebles, housing affordability is one of the most pressing issues facing the US right now. "There's no reason that somebody gainfully employed should have to be housing insecure, or struggle with finding an apartment they can comfortably afford on their full-time salary," he said. "That's a failure of American society."

Part of the problem, he said, is that developers are being restricted in terms of when and where they can build new housing. He cited historic preservation in the West Village, for example, which prevents developers from knocking down existing brownstones to create more housing.

These restrictions exist "even though they were constructed to satisfy the housing needs of a New York that's about one stitch the size of New York City is today," he said. "Instead of treating the symptoms, we need to begin to treat the underlying cause of the disease, which in my mind is a consequence of artificial supply constraints."

Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, told Insider that, for the most part, the organization was all for more affordable units in landmarked areas."That can be achieved through adaptive reuse and new construction," Berman told Insider.

But there is often a catch: "What is often proposed however is large new entirely or predominantly luxury developments which do little or nothing to address affordability issues and actually often make the situation worse, not better," he continued.

Meanwhile, Simeon Bankoff, executive director of NYC's Historic Districts Council, an organization that advocates for the city's historic and cultural neighborhoods, noted that as a developer, Peebles has a vested interest in more laxity on development. "If people who are in the business of doing real estate development didn't have to deal with regulations, they wouldn't."

Bankoff said the number of landmark properties in New York City overall is very small, the city has one of the most complex building ecosystems and construction ecosystems in America, and finally, it has a "limited amount of land. If someone wants to come in and build a high-density, residential development in a low-density zone, it's difficult." Doing that has nothing to do with landmark designation, Bankoff added.

Peebles Corporation is raising money for a fund to help minority entrepreneurs
Peebles, along with the corporation, has also been working to assist minority and women entrepreneurs as it seeks to help close the racial wealth gap and curb gentrification.

He called the racial wealth gap a social failure of capitalism. Talent, he said, is thought to be distributed equally, but without opportunities, underrepresented and underutilized business owners, entrepreneurs, and firms will still struggle to grow.

"It seems as though people who have a fair amount of economic privilege already are those who have been encouraged to become entrepreneurs and become owners," Peebles said, adding that consumers and society will benefit more if more people with talent are provided with opportunities.

A development project isn't like an options trade, he said, and there are so many different economic tributaries that flow from it — from the developer making money to the bank getting the land and the equity partner getting deployed capital.

The goal is to find a way to democratize access to capital and involve local businesses and long-term residents of particular neighborhoods in that neighborhood's economic growth, he said, rather than a third party coming in from outside, attracting all the capital and renovation work. Right now, he said, the Peebles Corporation is raising an emerging developers fund that will help provide capital to women and other developers of color who seek to develop in the communities in which they live.

And this, Peebles said, will hopefully guard, in some ways, against more gentrification.

"I like to say the struggle of the 19th century was emancipation," Peebles said. "The struggle of the 20th century was enfranchisement. And the struggle with the 21st is without a doubt, economics. If we can help bridge the racial wealth gap by whatever means, I think we're doing our society a service."

The government needs to give employees better safety nets, Peebles says
Peebles expressed optimism about the future of affordable housing with Joe Biden in the White House and congress under unified Democratic control.

He praised the section of the $900 billion in COVID-19 relief and $1.4 trillion stimulus package passed in December that assisted renters and made 4% the permanent minimum rate for low-income housing tax credit. Peebles predicts this will help create a boom in affordable housing.

He's also expecting a revision of a few tax policies that could have large-scale economic consequences, such as the 1031 exchange. He also hopes to see a revision in the structure of opportunity zones — designated geographic areas that have been identified as low-income subdivisions.

Opportunity zones, he said, are like "government-funded gentrification" and they need to be structured so they can help create jobs and economic opportunities within the communities they target, rather than creating economic hubs that are pushing out existing communities. "You want a rising tide that lifts all boats," he said. "Not a new dock."

The situation might be different for individual citizens, however, and Peebles said the pandemic has the potential to spark conversations around entrepreneurship as a whole. Many people realized that the job security and safety nets they had are not as secure as they once thought.

If the government, he said, could find ways to provide a more robust social safety net for people, it could boost innovation as it would give more people freedom to fail, which "would encourage more entrepreneurial risk-taking, which in turn would hopefully help bridge the racial wealth gap."

He called real estate "such a challenging, creative industry," but said he wouldn't rather be doing anything else. "The problems we solve are at times both very immediate and practical, but also indelibly complex. It's one of the best intellectual and social challenges."

Credit: Business Insider

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