RXR Realty announced the hiring of Seth Pinsky, president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), to lead a major RXR initiative to invest in emerging New York metropolitan area markets and contribute to the expansion of the region’s economy.
Pinsky will serve as an executive vice president of RXR and as investment manager of the newly created RXR Metropolitan Emerging Market Strategy.
RXR will allocate substantial capital for investment in New York City and surrounding Tri-State markets that have access to infrastructure and transit and offer opportunities for growth.
“Seth has been an incredibly dedicated, hard-working and successful public servant,” said Scott Rechler, chairman and CEO of RXR Realty.
“The goal is to identify areas and submarkets that have strong long-term potential but have suffered from a lack of private investment and apply RXR’s real estate expertise and capital, combined with Seth’s vast experience in economic development, to identify and invest in these opportunities throughout the region.”
RXR expects these investments to provide strong risk-adjusted returns, as well as strengthen the regional economy, by reviving underserved neighborhoods and stimulating significant economic development that attracts new industries to the region, creates attractive employment opportunities for area residents and increases the region’s competitive position nationally and internationally.
The initiative will seek to invest in: Centers of Innovation; Main Street Revitalization; Transitioning & Emerging Sectors.
“The venture will have an investment mandate to make both investments with attractive returns as well as investments in submarkets or sectors that have the potential to spark economic development, but have had a difficult time attracting private capital,” said Michael Maturo, RXR’s president.
Pinsky, 41, was appointed president of the NYCEDC in 2008 by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, having joined the agency in 2003 as a vice president.
Among the initiatives advanced by NYCEDC under Pinsky’s leadership were the redevelopment of Willets Point in Queens, Coney Island in Brooklyn, the Homeport in Staten Island, and the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx, as well as the creation of a major new bioscience research park on City-owned land, north of Bellevue Hospital.
Under Pinsky, NYCEDC also managed the construction of the first two phases of the High Line in Manhattan, launched the new East River Ferry service connecting Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan and is advancing plans for the world’s largest observation wheel in St. George in Staten Island.
Most recently, Pinsky served as Director of Mayor Bloomberg’s Special Initiative for Rebuilding and Resiliency, which developed a $20 billion plan to help neighborhoods stricken by Hurricane Sandy to rebuild smarter and stronger and to protect critical citywide systems and infrastructure from the likely impacts of climate change in coming decades.
While at NYCEDC, Pinsky served as a lead negotiator on behalf of New York City for projects ranging from Yankee Stadium and Citifield, to the World Trade Center, to the acquisition of Hunters Point South in Queens, the largest middle-income housing development in the City since Starrett City.
Prior to joining the NYCEDC, Pinsky was an associate at the law firm of Cleary Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in the Real Estate practice and a financial analyst at James D. Wolfensohn Inc. He is a graduate of Columbia College, where he majored in Ancient History, and of Harvard Law School.
Pinsky will leave NYCEDC in early August and start at RXR in September.
