Benjamin Weinstock, a shareholder of the Uniondale, NY, law firm, Ruskin Moscou Faltischek, P.C., and co-chair of the firm’s Real Estate Practice Group, has been elected chair of the Real Property Section of the New York State Bar Association.
Weinstock, a highly accredited real estate attorney, is the first Long Island practitioner to hold this statewide post.
The 4,263–member section is among the largest and most active sections in the New York State Bar Association.
Weinstock is well recognized for his expertise in all matters within the real estate legal realm.
In a career spanning three decades, he has handled real estate transactions from the basic to the highly complex nad his knowledge and skill place him among the most respected
and sought-after real estate lawyers in the region.
The scope of his work is vast and he is actively immersed in a wide array of professional organizations.
He is a Fellow of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers(ACREL) and serves on the Real Property Law Committee of the American Bar Association.
Prior to becoming the Section Chair, Weinstock served as first vice chair of the Real Property Law Section of the New York State Bar Association as well as the New York State Bar Association’s Committees on Title and Transfer and Commercial Leasing.
In recognition of his knowledge and contributions to the real estate industry, Governor Pataki named Weinstock to the prestigious New York State Real Estate Board, where he was elected Secretary, serving for seven terms.
He currently teaches the Real Estate LLM program at New York Law School.
Colliers International has expanded its Connecticut operations with the addition of industry veteran Michael Siegel as an executive managing director.
Throughout his career Siegel has arranged more than 1.5 million square feet of transactions across Westchester County, N.Y., and Connecticut,.
Prior to joining Colliers International, Siegel spent 20 years as an executive with CBRE’s Stamford office, dating back to Insignia/ESG.
Prior to CBRE he served as the Tri-State Regional Manager and then as an executive vice president with Cushman & Wakefield.
Among some of his notable transactions, Siegel: represented IBM International in its 500,000 s/f sale of 200 Purchase Street to Mastercard International, in Purchase, N.Y..
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ABS Partners Real Estate, LLC, announced that Robert Finkelstein has been hired as senior managing director.
In this capacity, he will focus on landlord and tenant assignments and develop a new team of qualified brokers within ABS to support the effort.
Most recently, Finkelstein was first vice president of sales at Massey Knakal Realty Services, where he focused on investment sales in Central and Northern Westchester.
He began his career at Dakota Realty in 1981 and was a senior vice president, director of leasing for the company.
He served as an exclusive leasing agent for 445 Park Avenue, 114 Fifth Avenue, 14 Penn Plaza aka 225 West 34th Street and The Bar Building at 36 West 44th Street.
Finkelstein has an MBA in finance from Iona College and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Denver.
In April, ABS announced that John Brod and his team of professionals from PBS Real Estate joined the firm. Earlier this month, Alan Friedman, formerly with CBRE, also joined the ABS Brokerage Division.
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Buchbinder & Warren announced the addition of Matthew Olden and Tamsin Wolf to their team.
Matthew Olden previously served as a financial analyst at Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc., focusing on project-based finance and real estate assignments and the interpretation of financial statements.
He earned his BBA from George Washington University. While in college he served as a junior analyst at Cronheim Mortgage.
Additionally, he interned for Buchbinder & Warren for two summers.
Having pivoted from a successful career as a lawyer, Tamsin Wolf is also a licensed EMT and, since 1988, has volunteered with the Bedford-Stuyvesant Volunteer Ambulance Corps which has responded to national and international emergencies, including the Queens air disaster, the first World Trade Center bombing, 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the Haitian earthquake, and Hurricane Sandy.
Tamsin also helped establish a legal center for deaf and hard-of-hearing New Yorkers, as well as a school for children with motor-neuron disorders, and has served as a counselor at a rape crisis center.
In 2004, she was a recipient of the 23rd annual Andrew Heiskell Community Service Award.
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Morrison & Foerster announced that Stephen D. Cox, former managing director and head of transaction operations and debt capital markets in the New York branch of Hypothekenbank Frankfurt AG (formerly Eurohypo AG), has joined the firm’s New York office as of counsel.
Cox has extensive experience structuring and negotiating complex portfolio and CMBS real estate financings.
He has worked on construction, predevelopment and mezzanine loans, secured and unsecured credit facilities, and REIT credit lines.
Prior to joining Hypothekenbank, Cox was an associate with Shearman & Sterling LLP representing U.S. and international financial institutions, joint ventures and corporations on all aspects of real estate financing, leasing, purchase and sale and merger activities.
He earned his J.D. from the University of Toronto, where he was an assistant editor of the Faculty of Law Review. He also received his masters and undergraduate degrees from the University of Toronto.
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Signature Bank announced the appointment of a new private client banking team to be based in its White Plains, N.Y. office in Westchester County.
David Pilossoph and Marie Moreno, both of whom are veteran bankers that spent decades with Citibank, N.A., were each named group director and senior vice president.
Pilossoph and Moreno spent 35 and 22 years, respectively, at Citibank locations in the Westchester area.
David Pilossoph most recently served as vice president and branch manager at the 244 Main Street branch in White Plains, a role he held for 23 years.
Marie Moreno was a vice president and branch manager at the 444 Mamaroneck Avenue branch in White Plains where she focused on business banking primarily for professional services entities.
Before being promoted to this branch manager role, she worked with Pilossoph for nearly two decades.
Joining the team is Diane Fracasse who brings 25 years of banking experience to her new senior client associate role.
Fracasse was assistant branch manager for Pilossoph at the White Plains branch.
Additionally, the Bank appointed several new banking professionals to various existing teams.
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Jeff Cohen from Grassi & Co. received the title of best accountant by The New York Enterprise Report (NYER).
The 2013 NYER Accountant & Attorney Awards: The Advisors You Need, presented along with Citibank, recognized the top seven accountants and top seven attorneys in the New York tri-state area.
Recipients were selected from more than 80 nominations based on their outstanding commitment to the success of their small and midsize business clients.
Cohen, CPA is a tax partner at Grassi & Co. with over 20 years of experience.
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Robert C. Moss has joined CohnReznick LLP as principal and national director of Governmental Affairs.
Moss has 28 years of affordable, multifamily housing experience including syndication, preservation and development, debt financing, tax credit applications, and property management.
Most recently, he was the senior vice president and director of origination, Affordable Housing for Boston Capital.
His industry and government experience includes serving as the chairman of the non-partisan Housing Advisory Group, and as the Federal Legislative Subcommittee Chair for the Housing Credit Group of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).
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Drucilla A. Richards, a New York City real estate veteran, has been named director of capital markets by Anbau Enterprises.
Richards brings 25 years of real estate industry experience to her position at Anbau, where her primary responsibility will be to raise debt and equity to fund Anbau projects.
Prior to joining Anbau, Richards was managing director, Equity Capital Markets at GTIS, where she managed the firm’s client services team and expanded their institutional investor base.
Previously, she founded and led TCAP Associates, an executive search firm, and held senior management positions at Trammell Crow Company, Trammell Crow Residential, Morgan Stanley and Legg Mason.
As an investment banker she worked on over 15 REIT IPOs as manager or co-manager. Richards began her career as a construction lender at Citicorp Real Estate, after completing her M.B.A. at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.
She received her undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of California, Irvine.
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Katherine O’Kane has been named education coordinator of NAIOP New Jersey.
She is a graduate of the University of Michigan with majors in History and Biology, and is currently enrolled at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University.
As education coordinator, her responsibilities include working with the Chapter’s Education Committee to prepare course outlines and applications for certification of NAIOP New Jersey’s seminars for continuing education credits (CEU) for multiple professions, including licensed brokers, accountants, architects and professional planners.
She will also serve as a resource for members in understanding CEU requirements and tracking their credits, and as the Chapter’s student member liaison for the NAIOP Scholars Program.
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Jeff Scheuer has been named director of External Affairs for Common Ground, NYC’s largest supportive housing provider.
Previously, Scheuer was the director of corporate and foundation relations at Common Ground, where he has been since 2009.
He has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin, a Masters in Urban Planning from the University of Michigan Ann Arbor with a special emphasis on affordable housing development, and has produced numerous successful grant proposals to develop and operate affordable and supportive housing in both Seattle and Los Angeles.
Prior to joining Common Ground, Scheuer was director of institutional giving and communications at a nationally renowned AIDS research organization based in New York.
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Joseph Young has joined Alfred Sanzari Enterprises as a commercial/industrial property manager.
Bringing more than 20 years experience to his new position, Young will oversee Sanzari’s commercial, industrial and retail portfolio, excluding the Glenpointe office complex.
Previously, Young served as property manager for Cohen Brothers Realty Corp.’s Decoration & Design Building in New York City.
He also previously worked as a property manager for Boston Properties.
Young received specialized training in mechanical engineering and firefighting from the United States Merchant Marine Academy, and studied security management at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
