Thor Equities announced the appointment of Fess Wofse as Chief Financial Officer.
Wofse will be responsible for all global finance operations at Thor Equities, including managing and reporting on the performance of the company and its investments, as well as overseeing Thor’s accounting and risk management departments.
Previously, Wofse was the CFO of Apollo Global Real Estate Management, the real estate investment manager for Apollo. Prior to joining Apollo, he was Director of Finance at Citi Property Investors, and before that he was a senior manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers in New York where he spent over 12 years.
A certified public accountant, Wofse has an MBA from Columbia Business School, and a BS in accounting from Binghamton University.
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Eastern Consolidated has promoted Mitchell Goldstick and Matthew Isaacs from Associate Director to Director in the Investment Sales Division.
Mitchell Goldstick specializes in the sale and acquisition of properties throughout New York City.
He recently worked on the $26 million sale of nine retail condos at 262-272 Mott Street in Nolita; the $15.75 million sale of a six-story, mixed-use property at 558-560 Broome Street in SoHo; and the $9.85 million sale of a mixed-use property at 51 Macdougal Street in SoHo.
Previously, Goldstick worked at Mark Greenberg Real Estate Co. LLC, and was an intern at Eastern Consolidated for two summers while attending college.
He graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a degree in Telecommunications, and is a member of REBNY (Real Estate Board of New York).
Matthew Isaacs specializes in the sale and acquisition of properties primarily in Downtown Manhattan and Northern Brooklyn. He most recently brokered the $6 million sale of a 4,875-square-foot, mixed-use property at 626 Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
Prior to joining Eastern Consolidated, Isaacs participated in the renovation and revitalization of a 75,000 s/f office and retail property in Williamsburg.Throughout the previous decade he owned and operated several well-known nightclubs in Manhattan as well as a global nightlife marketing company.
Isaacs holds a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College where he was captain of the Varsity Tennis team.
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Bussel Realty Corp. (BRC) announced the expansion of its industrial brokerage division with several new hires joining the company.
Eduard Skutelsky joins as a Vice President and will specialize in the Ports-related markets and other Northern/Central New Jersey industrial markets.
Ilan Tabbouche joins as an Associate, and will work in conjunction with industrial brokerage teams in the Edison, New Jersey office, in particular with the team of Senior Vice President Leo Esses of BRC.
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Avison Young announced the promotions of Project Management team professionals Tracey Kasper, John Mercurio, and Gabe Sasso to principal in the firm’s New Jersey office.
Tracey Kasper is a member of the U.S. Green Building Council Board, Kasper also served as the U.S. leader of Avison Young’s internal Global Citizenship Affinity Group.
She provides support to the firm’s Project Management Affinity Group and received the Avison Young Global Citizenship Award of Excellence in 2014.
Kasper joined The Walsh Company in 2006, prior to its acquisition by Avison Young six years later.
John Mercurio also joined The Walsh Company in 2006 and currently serves as Vice President, Construction, at Avison Young.
Mercurio is currently the Principal-in-Charge of the MC Hotel in Montclair, NJ, a new 8 story, 151 room hotel.
Gabe Sasso joined Avison Young in 2013 after working for Gale Construction for the prior 22 years.
He is currently the Principal-in-Charge of a major project for the United States Golf Association, which includes the complete renovation of the USGA’s 100,000 s/f administration building and a 40,000 s/f addition.
Sasso is a LEED-AP certified professional, an active member of the NJ Chapter of the United States Green Building Council and a highly-experienced safety professional with a certification to teach OSHA safety training classes.
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JEMB Realty Corporation (JEMB) announced the appointment of Alfonse F. Amore as the firm’s Director of Operations.
Amore will lead JEMB’s office and retail assets and serve as the lead to the firm’s sister company based in Montreal on standardizing policies, procedures and financial reporting between both firms.
With nearly three decades of real estate operations and expertise, Amore has been responsible for successful results in some of the industry’s leading firms including Trinity Real Estate, Tishman Speyer Properties, Morgan Stanley, Jones Lang LaSalle, CBRE and Equity Office Properties.
His career has encompassed different disciplines including technology and engineering, tenant relations, staff mentoring and management, labor relations, sustainability programs, major renovations and adaptive re-use to name a few.
His previous role at Trinity involved rebranding the firm to evolve within the industry. He initiated a multi-faceted program involving getting an upscale tenant base, led green initiatives, reduced operating costs and a comprehensive reduction of the portfolio’s carbon footprint and system-wide engineering upgrades.
Amore earned an M.A. from the University of Florida with a specialty in real estate and urban land use analysis and a B.B.A from Temple University with a specialty in Real Estate.
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Wayne L. Kasbar has joined Colliers International Group Inc. in Parsippany as a Managing Director.
Kasbar will focus on the retail sector. An active broker in Manhattan, he moved his real estate practice to New Jersey in 2002.
He was a member of Trammel Crow’s retail leasing team and continued in that role after CBRE acquired the firm.
Just prior to his new position at Colliers, Kasbar was at Silbert Realty & Management Company, Inc., where he had oversight of the brokerage team.
He has more than 27 years of transactional brokerage experience and, over the past decade, has been involved in $50 million annually in lease transactions. He is a resident of Summit.
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Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and Metropolitan Transportation Authority Interim Executive Director Ronnie Hakim announced that Janno Lieber, president of World Trade Center Properties, will join the senior executive ranks of the MTA as Chief Development Officer.
In the newly created position, Lieber will take over leadership and oversight of key strategic capital initiatives focused on increasing the capacity of the system.
Lieber will head up the MTA Capital Construction Company and will manage the MTA’s major capital projects including the Second Avenue Subway Phase II; East Side Access; Penn Station Access and LIRR Double Track.
Lieberserved as president of World Trade Center Properties for 14 years. Before that he was a senior vice president at Lawrence Ruben Company, and worked with clients such as Chicago Transit Authority, New Jersey Transit, and Penn Station Redevelopment Corp.
Before that, Lieber served in the federal government, having been appointed in 1994 by President Bill Clinton to serve as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy for the U.S. Department of Transportation. In this role, Lieber spearheaded the development and roll-out of the Clinton Administration’s ISTEA authorization proposal, a highway and mass transit funding bill that included federal spending to improve, widen and extend the nation’s highway system.
Earlier in his career, Lieber practiced law at the New York firm of Patterson, Belknap Webb & Tyler and served as a transportation policy advisor in the office of New York City Mayor Ed Koch.
Lieber is a graduate of Harvard University and New York University Law School.
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Lee & Associates NYC announced the addition of two retail veterans to the team, Mark Kapnick, former SVP at SRS Real Estate Partners, and Greg Tannor, former Director at Cushman Wakefield.
Kapnick and Tannor will join Lee NYC as Executive Vice Presidents and Principals, forming the KT Group.
Mark Kapnick has more than 25 years in retail leasing and investment sales, specializing in hospitality. He has completed more than two million square feet of leasing and investment sales. He most recently arranged the leasing of 60,000 s/f at the base of The Moinian Group’s Sky building.
Kapnick was also awarded REBNY’s “Most Significant Retail Deal of the Year” award in 2014 on behalf of Equity Office for Redefining Bryant Park, The Creation of a New Retail District with his former team.
Greg Tannor has more than 17 years of experience in commercial real estate, specializing in retail leasing, investment sales, and office leasing. In one of his most notable transactions, he secured the lease between ownership and Tesla Motors for its new global flagship location.
Kapnick and Tannor’s KT Group will be responsible for continuing the growth of Lee NYC’s metro business. They will also focus on both tenant and landlord representation in an effort to strategically grow the platform.
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Eastern Union Funding is expanding its healthcare team with the addition of Nachum Soroka, an experienced underwriter with years specializing in healthcare financing.
Soroka, who will serve as vice president of Eastern Union’s healthcare group, has underwritten more than $1.5 billion in healthcare loans nationwide and has analyzed over $3.5 billion in potential credit, including ground-up construction, acquisition loans, refinancing and ABL lines of credit.
Before joining Eastern Union, Soroka was the chief underwriter for the national healthcare financing group at Banco Popular North America where he created the underwriting, screening and portfolio management templates for the bank’s $500 million loan portfolio.
Prior to that, Soroka was a lead analyst for Maryland-based Congressional Bank, an affiliate of the largest HUD healthcare lender, working on bridge loans and lines of credit in the skilled nursing sector. He has expertise in skilled nursing, assisted living, CCRC and hospital facilities.
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Hunt Mortgage Group announced that Vic Clark has been promoted to National Head of Conventional Agency and Commercial Loan Production.
He will oversee production for onventional agency business and proprietary commercial loan products.
Prior to his new role, Clark was a Managing Director and was hired originally in 2012 to build and lead a team that focused on agency lending and assisting the company with developing alternative capital financing strategies.
Before Hunt Mortgage Group, he was with Walker & Dunlop as a Senior Vice President. Earlier, he was managing director at Column Financial, Inc./Credit Suisse. He spent 14 years there in various roles culminating in a national role responsible for loan origination, production, and business development.
He holds a BS in accounting from the University of Southern California, and is a certified public accountant.
