Gary Barnett has employed Andrew Chung as his companion at Extell Growth because the prolific condominium builder units his sights on extra industrial tasks.
Chung, who was one of many trailblazers of the mid-2010s last-mile warehouse increase, is becoming a member of Extell with the titles of president and co-CEO, Barnett introduced Tuesday.
“Andrew is a extremely revered chief with a uncommon mixture of growth experience and institutional funding expertise,” Barnett mentioned in an announcement. “I’ve had the chance to work with Andrew over time and have lengthy admired what he constructed at Innovo, in addition to his monitor document at Carlyle. I’m assured his strategic perspective will probably be invaluable as we proceed to develop and enter Extell’s subsequent chapter.”
As Chung joins Extell, his firm Innovo Property Group will proceed to function with its present crew, in response to an individual accustomed to his plans.
It’s not clear precisely how and when the 2 first met, however Extell had partnered with the Carlyle Group to develop Riverside Drive within the late 2000s when Chung was working for the non-public fairness big.
Barnett mentioned Chung will work intently with him to supervise Extell’s strategic route, growth pipeline, capital relationships and long-term progress plans throughout its residential, industrial and mixed-use investments.
It’s one other try by Barnett to discover a right-hand at Extell as the corporate makes some contrarian strikes.
The final time Extell had a CEO that wasn’t Barnett was when the corporate employed Westbrook Companions’ Sush Torgalkar in 2019. Torgalkar lasted a bit greater than a 12 months and a half earlier than leaving in 2020 to start out his personal agency, Sage Corridor Companions.
Previous to that, Extell had seen numerous high-level departures. One among Barnett’s longtime deputies, Raizy Haas, left in 2019 after greater than 20 years on the firm. Extell’s advertising and marketing lead, Anna Zarro, left in 2018 to type her personal agency. One other high government, assemblage knowledgeable Dov Hertz, left in 2016 to form funding agency DH Property Holdings.
Barnett, greatest identified for growing market-defining condominium towers like One57 and Central Park Tower on Billionaires’ Row, has lately been specializing in industrial tasks.
He’s growing a 29-story workplace tower at 570 Fifth Avenue, anchored by an 80,000-square-foot Ikea retailer and the legislation agency Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, which agreed to lease roughly 700,000 sq. ft.
He’s additionally made a play to take over the 1.8 million-square-foot Worldwide Plaza workplace tower from SL Green and RXR by way of a UCC foreclosures.
Barnett, who usually shies away from media appearances, final 12 months gave some interviews the place he talked concerning the favorable situations within the workplace market.
“Right here we’re again with virtually each firm now, together with ours, saying you need to be within the workplace three-to-four days per week, 5 days per week,” he instructed the Wall Road Journal. “Having the social community of individuals working collectively and being collectively, there’s nothing prefer it. That’s why we’re capable of construct brand-new workplace buildings.”
Chung, in the meantime, brings alongside a monitor document of pioneering tasks.
He labored at Carlyle when the corporate teamed up with the Chera household’s Crown Acquisitions to purchase a majority curiosity within the retail at 666 Fifth Avenue from Kushner Corporations for $525 million in 2008. That very same 12 months the agency joined with Ben Ashkenazy to purchase 650 Madison Avenue, a 27-story Plaza District workplace constructing, for $680 million.
Chung left Carlyle to launch Innovo in 2015 and was one of many first builders to go actually huge into the last-mile warehouse house. He developed the 1 million-square-foot, multi-story industrial constructing at 2505 Bruckner Boulevard within the Bronx. Amazon leases about half of the constructing.
It wasn’t all wins for the up-and-coming developer, although.
In 2022 a deal he put collectively to purchase the HSBC workplace tower close to Bryant Park for $855 million fell aside. Chung ended up dropping his $30 million deposit.
Learn extra
How Andrew Chung won New York City’s warehouse race
Barnett scores win in Worldwide Plaza face-off with Holliday and Rechler
