By Brian Pascus

Don Peebles may be the most equity-minded developer in the country, creating opportunities for those traditionally left at the commercial real estate industry’s margins.

For every Peebles project, he offers 35 percent of contracts to minority- and female-owned businesses. He has spent a lot of the pandemic, too, fundraising for Peebles’ Emerging Development Fund, which invests in minority- and female-owned real estate companies, with the goal of reaching $450 million.

“We level the playing field for women and minorities — and that needs to be closed,” Peebles, one of the nation’s most successful Black developers, said. “While there’s been much more engagement in terms of racial equality since [last summer’s] protests, it’s been more focused in making lower-income people more comfortable as opposed to providing them access to opportunities to build wealth.”

Peebles also spent the pandemic shepherding several projects across the country.

Even as COVID-19 forced the corporation to abandon plans for a hotel project in Philadelphia that had secured financing, Peebles forged ahead. He’s betting big on cities in general with mixed-use mega-projects totaling $4 billion in the works.

Last spring, he reopened The Bath Club, an iconic Miami beach club, which infamously prohibited Jews and Blacks from becoming members about a century ago. Today, after investing in renovations worth $8 million, there are more than 500 membership applications, far more than what the club can accommodate, Peebles said. This time though, everyone is welcomed — if they can pay: the initiation fee costs $20,000 and annual dues are $18,000.

In Downtown L.A., he’s laying the groundwork for Angels Landing, a $1.6 billion, 2 million-square-foot project that would deliver 63- and 42-story towers. The proposal cleared L.A.’s environmental impact review in March 2021, and Peebles hopes the shiny project will open in time for the 2028 Olympics that the City of Angels is set to host.

In Boston’s popular Bay Back neighborhood, his firm is developing another mixed-use project that will cost more than $500 million and encompass 432,000 square feet. It also involves a complex deal for air rights in the Massachusetts capital.—J.E.

Credit: Commercial Observer

The Peebles Corporation founder, chairman, and CEO Don Peebles discusses whether commercial real estate will crash on 'Making Money.'

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Don Peebles, chairman and CEO of the Peebles Corporation, joins ‘The Exchange’ to discuss upset over President Biden joining the UAW picket line, Trump’s effort to win Michigan, and concerns about President Biden’s bid for reelection.

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By Sharelle Burt

A piece of Black history will be destroyed in Charlotte.

The iconic Walton Plaza building that graces the Queen City skyline is being torn down, the Charlotte Observer reports. The first Black-developed building of its kind between Washington, D.C. and Atlanta hosted some of Charlotte’s finest citizens.

It is the first real estate project led by attorney and congressman Mel Watt and was the professional home to Charlotte legends, including Julius Chambers and Harvey Gantt. Now, its demolition is drawing mixed reviews.

Developer BK Partners will build a new property called Brooklyn Village, consisting of 1,243 residential units, including at least 114 designated affordable units, office and retail space, hotel rooms and 2.5 acres of “open space,” which includes a park. Historians and landmark contributors such as Watt and Gantt say the building’s existence held extraordinary significance when there was a lack of opportunities for Black people.

Built in the early 1970s, Walton Plaza provided a space to support Black business enterprises.

“Its construction alone was an act of defiance in a racially polarized time,” Watt said.

Gantt, the city’s former mayor, leased space there for his architecture firm for a number of years.

“It was a first-class space and there was a good measure of accomplishment to see this succeeding,” Gantt said.

The building survived racial trauma and continued to thrive over the years. On Feb. 4, 1971, someone firebombed Chambers’ law office, just days before Chambers and Westside Associates won a bid to build another project named East Independence Plaza.

New Brooklyn Village construction started in early August 2023 after BK Partners LLC purchased the property from Mecklenburg County for $10.3 million, according to WSOC-TV. However, not all hope is lost to keep the Black legacy alive. The new owners include The Peebles Corporation, a New York-based African-American-owned company, and the Charlotte-based Conformity Corporation.

Peebles Corp EVP Donahue Peebles III said the group recognizes the history behind the land but realizes its time for something new, calling Brooklyn Village South “the first step in a long journey.”

“I think that our focus has always been on paying homage to the vibrancy that was historic Brooklyn…something that could approximate what was the city’s main district for Black people,” Peebles said.

Credit: Black Enterprise

Don Peebles, The Peebles Corporation CEO and chairman, joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss the health of the real estate nationwide, housing market, the state of commercial real estate, and more.

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By Brian Pascus

The Peebles Corporation has now entered Carolinas country.

Don Peebles’ eponymous real estate firm has secured $23.75 million in construction and acquisition financing to build the first phase of a 3 million-square-foot, mixed-use urban complex in the Uptown neighborhood of Charlotte, N.C., Commercial Observer has learned.

Stonehill Strategic Capital provided the financing, while Ackman-Ziff negotiated the debt.  Further terms of the loan were not disclosed.

The Peebles Corporation is working with Charlotte-based developer Conformity Corporation on the project, which is expected to create an “urban village” of mixed-income housing, office space, hotel rooms and ground-level retail in an Uptown neighborhood that was once a thriving area for Black business development, prior to 20th century gentrification and displacement.

“It’s a historically Black neighborhood that was demolished as a consequence of urban renewal,” explained Donahue Peebles III, executive vice president of The Peebles Corporation: the largest Black-owned real estate firm in the nation.

“There’s a message here of a minority-owned firm leading the development of a neighborhood whose demolition socially and economically disenfranchised numerous folks,” he added. “We’re going to deliver a project that the city and its citizens can stand behind and be proud of.”

Monte Richey, president of Conformity Corporation, echoed these points.

“On land that hasn’t seen private investment in over 50 years, Conformity Corp. and Peebles will create a vibrant future for the Second Ward through its Brooklyn Village development activities,” Richey said in a statement.

The Peebles Corporation bought the first six acres of a planned 18-acre site from Mecklenburg County, which previously used the space to house a municipal parking lot and office building. The Peebles Corporation plans to demolish these public sites and create a 550-unit multifamily complex on the first six acres, before buying up the remaining land and adding the hospitality, office and retail components.

“The objective from there is to build as densely as possible, and to make sure we’re delivering on the attendant policies and benefits that the city and county are expecting,” Peebles III said. “Ultimately, it should set the stage for large-scale, public-private partnerships in the region.”

Peebles III told CO that this is The Peebles Corporation’s first foray into the Carolinas, but the firm identified the site seven years ago and was attracted by the Wake Forest University education system as well as the sprawling healthcare network and thriving banking sector of the Charlotte region — home to Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

“Charlotte has incredible fundamentals — it’s an extraordinarily business-friendly state, temperate from a climate standpoint, and the cost of living is low compared to competing [metropolitan statistical areas],” Peebles III said. “From 2016 to today, we’ve seen Charlotte explode, and it’s done so in a way that’s maintained mobility and affordability, and ultimately developed on its promise.”

Brooklyn Village’s residential component will include market-rate rental apartments and affordable rental units, as well as for-sale condos. The second phase of the larger project will include the construction of an office tower and hotel along Brooklyn Village Avenue to connect Midtown Charlotte with Uptown Charlotte and create a park surrounded by retail shops and stores.

“I think that live-work-play environments are the future of development,” said Peebles III. “You want 18 hour-a-day streetscapes, you want folks there before, during and after work hours, and you want to co-locate mixed-income multifamily with hospitality and office to create an urban environment that brings high quality of life at affordable prices.”

Peebles III said that one in 10 units in the multifamily component of the project will be designated affordable.

The Peebles Corporation was founded in 1983 by R. Donahue Peebles and has offices in New York City, Miami and Washington, D.C. The firm has a national portfolio of more than 10 million square feet and $8 billion worth of property, including the proposed Angels Landing project in Downtown Los Angeles — a 1.2 million-square-foot mixed-use complex of two hotels, condominium, rental units and retail space.

Credit: Commercial Observer

Bess Freedman, Brown Harris Stevens CEO, and Don Peebles, The Peebles Corporation chairman and CEO, join ‘Last Call’ to talk sky high rent prices in NYC and across the country.

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By Melissa Lee

Don Peebles, CEO and chairman of the Peebles Corporation, joins 'The Exchange' to discuss a change in sentiment toward the commercial real estate sector, the company's recent loan, and the cost of borrowing in private credit.

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By Deidre Bosa

Don Peebles, CEO and chairman of the Peebles Corporation, joins ‘The Exchange’ to discuss a new property law in Florida that restricts Chinese nationals from buying property in the state, the health of commercial real estate in America, and more.

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