BREIF. Boston Real Estate Inclusion Fund.

Rethink Real Estate. For Good.

Kirk Sykes is Managing Director of Accordia Partners, LLC, a Boston-based real estate investment and development company. Accordia executes large scale public-private real estate projects with a goal of financial and socially responsible investing success. He was previously the head of Urban Strategy America Fund, L.P., an urban investment, development, and redevelopment commercial real estate equity fund focused on investment returns, economic development and environmental sustainability.

Mr. Sykes combines his professional training and hands-on experience in the areas of finance, investment, development, design, and construction to create customized responses to the complex issues of urban real estate development. His approach is grounded in the bottom-line driven perspective gained during his tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and other roles that included serving on Fleet Bank and BankBoston’s Community Bank Advisory Boards. He currently serves on the Eastern Bank Board of Trustees and Risk Management Committee and on the Board of Directors of Apartment Investment and Management Company. He was formerly a member of the Ares Commercial Real Estate (NYSE: ACRE) Board and Compensation Committee.

Mr. Sykes has attended the Harvard Business School Owner/President Management Program, the MIT Center for Real Estate Development Commercial Development Executive Program, and L’Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. He earned his Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University.

Read the podcast transcript here

Eve Picker: [00:00:09] Hi there. Thanks for joining me on Rethink Real Estate. For Good. I’m Eve Picker and I’m on a mission to make real estate work for everyone. I love real estate. Real estate makes places good or bad, rich, or poor, beautiful, or not. In this show, I’m interviewing the disruptors, those creative thinkers and doers that are shrugging off the status quo in order to build better for everyone.

Eve: [00:00:52] Kirk Sykes is managing director of Accordia Partners, a Boston based real estate investment and development company. Accordia develops large public private real estate projects. Kirk was previously the head of Urban Strategy America Fund, perhaps one of the first urban real estate equity funds focused on the triple bottom line. And that brings us to this podcast. Kirk has had a highly successful career, but that is not enough for him. He has always given back. And for Kirk, that means helping the black community he is part of access capital and investment opportunities that have historically been unavailable to them. Listen in to learn more.

Eve: [00:01:48] Hello Kirk. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Kirk Sykes: [00:01:52] Eve it’s a pleasure to be with you.

Eve: [00:01:54] So you’ve had a pretty rock star career in real estate, founding, owning and managing companies in the financial services, real estate and architectural sectors, and even serving as the chairman of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. But all the while, you’ve been building your profile. You’ve made inclusion for BIPOC and women in real estate a lifelong mission. My first question for you is a tough one, but how does it feel to be a black man in real estate today compared to, say, 25 years ago?

Kirk: [00:02:27] Well as we all know all real estate is local so I’ll answer that from the perspective of being in the Boston market. So, I would say it’s better in Boston. And I didn’t know that I would say that when I first came to Boston 40 years ago. But there has been a substantial improvement from the time that I first came to this market.

Eve: [00:02:53] That’s good to hear, because, you know, my vivid memories of ten, 15 years ago in Pittsburgh were entering a real estate event room and literally feeling like the only woman there. It was a pretty elite club. So, do you think we have come even vaguely close to equality?

Kirk: [00:03:15] You know, it’s hard to say what equality is. Commercial real estate has been notoriously inequitable, you know, due to the demands in terms of capital and access and going back to redlining and even where the banks’ insurance companies wouldn’t lend to people of color and also to women. So, I think we’re getting closer in equity in many ways. I think there are a lot more people, capable people, in the market that I’m in than there were when I started. I was one of a few, or a handful, and now I’d say I’m encouraged by the number of folks that have shown up. I can talk a bit about how we got there, if you like, at some point.

Eve: [00:04:09] Oh yeah. No, I’d like to know. And my next question will be what still needs to be fixed?

Kirk: [00:04:14] Yeah. So, a few things in the Boston market changed in the last 20 years. One of the most significant was something called the Massport Model. So, a public entity, the Port Authority decided that it would make inclusion by women and people of color in all aspects of projects, 25% of its selection criteria for who got to develop sites they controlled in Boston Seaport, which became very valuable over the last 20 years. That process has evolved and gotten better and has led us to BRIEF which we’ll talk about a little later. But I would say I never imagined Boston would be the leader in change in public disposition of valuable real estate assets. But it has evolved into that. And that Massport Model has now expanded to be part of the disposition and expectations of the city as a whole, and not just the state. So that’s quite an accomplishment for Boston.

Eve: [00:05:32] It is. So, it’s gone from being an unusual idea to something that’s sort of part of the fabric of doing real estate in that area, by the sounds of it.

Kirk: [00:05:42] And it’s continuing to evolve. So now there is a request from the city on every development project that developers disclose what they are doing in terms of inclusion and equity, resiliency and affordability. And it is presumed that that may evolve further to be more than just a voluntary disclosure. So, I think the message is coming across that if you want to get approved or entitled to build a significant real estate asset, you need to be doing meaningful things in terms of transformation.

Eve: [00:06:20] So how? I mean, at least in that area, how close are we to equity? Like, how far do we still have to go? You know, you said you’ve been working on this for 25 years. Is it another 25 years? Is it around the corner?

Kirk: [00:06:35] Well, it’s a diverging trend line, isn’t it? If you look at opportunities and the number of people able to execute them. And that’s unfortunately related to access to capital in many ways because there isn’t sufficient accessibility to be in a position of controlling projects, not just to invest in a project, it’s who’s in the decision making position to leverage those projects to be transformational in terms of labor, in terms of occupancy, in terms of, you know, affordable retail, you know, all the transformative things that come along with control are so important. And if, by way of your question of equity, it’s a broad question. In terms of how many people will be able to be, able to own valuable commercial real estate assets, aren’t we playing a 400 year catch up game?

Eve: [00:07:38] Probably, yes.

Kirk: [00:07:39] Closing that gap.

Eve: [00:07:41] Yeah

Kirk: [00:07:41] But there is reason for optimism. When I took over Real Estate Executive Council in the early 2000s as the preeminent organization of African American real estate executives in the country, it grew from 30 to 70 people, but now it’s 250 people. So, that seems to be exponential growth and something to celebrate.

Eve: [00:08:05] Right. Although I have to say this, and people have heard me say this before, when I look at the investments made by VCs in 2023 versus 2000, nothing has changed. I mean, you’re looking at companies, you know, women-owned companies, 2% of the investment dollars, minority-owned companies, 1% of the investment made during that year. That feels to me like we’re never going to get anywhere.

Kirk: [00:08:37] It’s easy to be disheartened and it’s hard to continue in the face of the challenges. But, you know, you mentioned venture. I think something has changed. I have the good fortune to be the father of the founder, one of the founders of black VC and, BLCK VC didn’t just try to promote people going into venture as investments, but creating an ecosystem where BIPOC and women venture platforms could be launched. So now, while the numbers are still pretty small, you know, I think when Sydney Sykes went to the Valley after Stanford Business School, it was 300 folks of color in venture platforms. Probably hasn’t gone up a lot, but there are a lot more people nationally in that ecosystem of venture investing platforms which didn’t exist before black VC. So, I’m encouraged, I guess, and I’m an optimist. I’m a developer, I got to be an optimist.

Eve: [00:09:40] I tend to be discouraged and encouraged in cycles, you know, with my platform. Small Change. What I’ve seen in that, the world of democratized investment opportunities is that there’s a very large percentage of women and minority owned businesses looking at that tool as a way to startup businesses. And I think that will eventually Sort of become part of the status quo. So that’s also I think a check mark, right?

Kirk: [00:10:07] Yeah. That’s true.

Eve: [00:10:08] Okay. So, what initiatives in particular have you tackled over the years in an effort to move this needle?

Kirk: [00:10:15] Yeah, interesting. You know, I’ve had a few hats, as you’ve mentioned, from architect to developer to investor. So, I guess it depends on which hat I’m wearing. But I like to say I’ve built community with a pencil, a dollar and a brick, and building community is important to me. They’ve all worked well at different times. So, if I were to point to some specific opportunities or, I should say, initiatives, going back to the 90s we changed the point system on the largest highway construction project in America, the Big Dig, $20 billion.

Eve: [00:10:56] Oh, I remember that.

Kirk: [00:10:57] But we found out people were winning contracts by a very few points. So, when we gave value and attention to including first time and diverse team members or companies, it automatically, out of greed, kind of propelled opportunity for those companies to grow. In 2000 we got involved with developing the first African American owned branded hotel in New England. And it was in an Empowerment Zone. And we learned how to use Empowerment Zone financing and tax preferences to create the most diverse workforce, in terms of construction and union labor. The first African American general manager, a hotel staff that was 98% people of color, mostly women. So, leveraging the Empowerment Zone objectives to create change. And then coming into early 2000s with the launch of Urban Strategy America Fund, which I started, which was sort of the early socially responsible investing private equity strategy, which included all the banks and a number of institutional investors and pension funds, we created change in terms of keeping track and measuring investment with women and people of color and transformation of communities and we found investors that wanted to invest in that. And so, you know, I could keep going, I guess what the theme is that over the years, not only the initiatives have changed but the tools required to create change have changed. And so, I keep trying to evolve to stay one step ahead. And now with the BRIEF vehicle we’ve launched with Small Change, we’re trying to figure out how to make large scale commercial real estate opportunities that typically don’t see commercial real estate investors out of the diverse communities more available and accessible. So, thank you for helping us with that.

Eve: [00:13:15] Oh sure. Well, it’s been a little bit disappointing in some ways, but we can talk about that too. But let’s talk about that BRIEF and what and who is BRIEF and what inspired it.

Kirk: [00:13:26] BRIEF, Boston Real Estate Inclusion Fund, kind of came out of that evolving leadership in Boston to want to create opportunities for people of color and women to invest in some of the growth that’s happening and has been happening specifically around the life science industry, but in other industries as well. And so, three partners came together. We were once competitors and, you know, we joined up to identify commercial real estate investment opportunities in the city and then bring retail investors together with Basis Investment Group. And Basis as the largest woman of color owned platform in commercial real estate, having done about 6 billion, had the ability to come in and finance investments and underwrite investments with large scale developers who had very attractive opportunities. And then we came along and syndicated out a portion of that to make it available to smaller retail investors, qualified investors, who could invest $50,000 or more. And now we’re putting about $3 million into one venture, which Basis has put $11 million into with related companies.

Eve: [00:14:50] So this opportunity is on Small Change, but it’s accredited investors only, or qualified investors. That’s my disappointment and for yours too, right, that it couldn’t be non-accredited investors, because if you can’t get your foot in the door, then it’s pretty hard to start building wealth. But nevertheless, the rules dictated that. And so, you’re trying to raise 3.75 million towards this pretty spectacular life sciences project in Boston. Do you want to tell us a bit about the building and the tenants and developers?

Kirk: [00:15:25] Yeah, yeah, the building is exciting in that it’s a life sciences building for Vertex Pharmaceuticals, which is a fortune 100 pharmaceutical company. The project itself is about $418 million, 344,000ft². But what’s more exciting is that Vertex is the 100% commercial tenant for the building, and it’s expected to come in as a equity investor alongside the retail investors. The sponsor is equally impressive, related companies, which build projects like Hudson Yards in New York, is the sponsor for the venture and is quite qualified and capable in the Boston market. We’re excited to make this available in much smaller retail investor increments to qualified investors than has typically happened before. And with your help, we’re making that possible.

Eve: [00:16:26] Yeah. So, the disappointment is that because this is such a small piece of the pie, right, of a very large project, it’s really a passive investment into that project. And so therefore non-accredited investors are not permitted to invest through regulation crowdfunding, which is a very big disappointment. But maybe someone at the SEC is listening.

Kirk: [00:16:50] Well, we’re happy to at least, this is a very cutting-edge effort in our opinion. And hopefully it will continue to get even better in terms of its availability as time goes on.

Eve: [00:17:03] So what is the ultimate goal for BRIEF?

Kirk: [00:17:06] Yeah. So, you know, BRIEF is ultimately trying to promote opportunities for diverse investors, Bipoc and women investors, who don’t get a chance to participate in these investments. But our ultimate goal is for transformational real estate investments that do well and do good. And, specifically, in the terms of inclusion and all aspects of inclusion, which is a dimension of this project. 50% of the project’s participants are women and people of color. It is a LEED-certified building and aspires to be Net Zero. So, in terms of ESG dimensions, this is a home run. So doing well and doing good, as was the case back when I launched my triple bottom line fund in 2005 is People, Planet, Profit. And I like to say that there are not the other two Ps without the profit P but the same is true in terms of the People and Planet dimension. And we will look forward to chronicling how this building is transformational and we’re excited that people can actually also be profitable in doing that.

Eve: [00:18:32] So for anyone who’s listening, if you don’t already know, we are at SmallChange.co. So you started life as, or at least your career not life, as an architecture student. And what led you to start a fund? It’s a pretty big step. Yeah.

Kirk: [00:18:49] Big step. You know, I think the cornerstone of everything I’ve done in my life has been about building community. And that sounds rather broad, but, you know, my family came out of the black community in Alabama, and my great grandparents were involved in setting up the education system in Alabama. And, you know, we’ve always been part, not only of building community in the black community, but standing up for civil rights. Grandfather testified in the Scottsboro trial, helped black people have a voice up to the Supreme Court to be on juries in America. So, there’s an obligation where to much those who’s given, much is expected. And I think that’s a roundabout way of saying I see real estate as my vehicle for giving back. And you heard me say earlier, I built community with a pencil, a dollar and a brick, and they’ve all worked at various times. I’m kind of agnostic. I want them all to be, all the tools on the table, to achieve the outcomes we want to try to attain. And so, that’s the path I’ve chosen for my life. And the fund vehicle has been maybe the most transformational, because you’re leveraging capital and you’re able to leverage that to create the change that sometimes doesn’t get attained without capital leverage.

Eve: [00:20:26] Yeah, I personally agree. You’re a real estate developer, what sort of projects are you working on today?

Kirk: [00:20:33] Our singular and greatest focus beyond BRIEF, and BRIEF has the ability to be in lots of investments in an investor role as it’s evaluated and underwritten, and we’re able to be confident that we can share that with retail investors in a way that they can make an intelligent investment decision. Beyond that, we are developing 6,000,000ft² at a place called Dorchester Bay City, and this is a 15-year capstone project. We’ve been at it for four. It’s 36 acres on a peninsula on the Red Line in Boston, on the water next to the third largest park, next to an urban beach, next to the third most diverse university in the country. And we are extremely excited about that project. So, for me, I’ve gotten more focused in my efforts, and they are really bifurcated between the retail opportunities for diverse investors that BRIEF affords and the transformation and placemaking and inclusion that can be attained through a 6,000,000 square foot, $5 billion project.

Eve: [00:21:52] So what have been some of your very biggest challenges over the years and maybe disappointments?

Kirk: [00:21:59] Yeah. You know, it’s interesting. I guess I don’t see barriers, I see opportunities. And so, I suppose in that regard everything’s a disappointment, right? Or anything that gets in your way.

Eve: [00:22:16] Yes.

Kirk: [00:22:17] But, you know, I’ve been very fortunate to take advantage of opportunities that have been presented to me, and many of them have showed up in ways that I never expected. So, I go into life looking for a great story. If I come up with a great outcome, then it’s an additional success. And so, I try not to be disappointed, but, you know, I would like to have been where we are now 20 years ago, in terms of being able to access 36 acres and do a 6,000,000 square foot project. But, you know, it wasn’t the time. And by that, what I mean is I didn’t have the capital relationships. I hadn’t spent the time in financial institutions and environments. So, I’m not answering your question because, as an optimist it’s really hard for me to look at and find the disappointments. I just see them as impediments that can be removed.

Eve: [00:23:23] Interesting. So, they just even, they just become bigger challenges.

Speaker3: [00:23:28] Well, you know, makes life interesting, right? I mean, if it were easy, everybody would do it. And many of the opportunities have come out of adversity. When we acquired the Crosstown site, we were unable to test for anything by the agreement on the contract. There was a lead paint factory underneath it.

Eve: [00:23:50] Oh.

Kirk: [00:23:51] So a guy with no money had a project for a city block. But he had a lead paint factory he had to get rid of. So, we created an environmental risk transfer company with an insurance company and an engineering company. We fixed the problem. We got the regulatory closure. I sold the company back to them. They went on and did it for other people. So, I guess the story of that is, maybe the opportunity was there because somebody else knew there was a lead paint factory, or maybe they didn’t know how to solve the problem, but once you can remove it, it became a valuable asset. And we own that asset today. But if I gave up…

Eve: [00:24:33] You wouldn’t own it. That’s right. I’m going to go back to BRIEF at the moment and the 22 DryDock offering. What will success look like for you with that offering?

Kirk: [00:24:45] Yeah. You know, success here, because it’s all about the qualified investor and their ability to obtain the expected outcome. So, we’ve been able to scrub a lot of the risk in this project. One of the advantages of coming in later, which is not always where people of color are invited to come in, usually it’s in an effort to win something. If you come join me, I’ll tell you what you won. Win, win. This is the exact opposite of that. We’ve reverse engineered inclusion. And so, to your question, success will look like a predictable outcome where people attain the 1.7 equity multiple that they’re expected to get and the 17% internal rate of return. But the only way to do that is to have risk adjusted returns that are based in fact. And so, 22 DryDock project is unique in that 60% of the project has been bought out in terms of construction costs. Normally, you don’t know that when you go into a project, it has a tenant for 100% of the space. Normally you don’t have a tenant before you start a project. It has the success of a very viable fortune 100 pharmaceutical company who has a building across the street already in their headquarters in it. So, there is certainty of tenancy. And so, I guess I’m describing to you predictable outcomes that track along the lines of the underwriting that we offer to our investors. The by-product is that we can engage a lot of people of color and women in the execution of this project, and that we can prove that doing well is not at the exclusion of doing good or the opposite.

Eve: [00:26:46] Well, on that note, I thank you very much for joining me. You’ve had a pretty spectacular career. I’m not sure what else to say. I was gonna say, what’s next for you? But it sounds like you have your hands full.

Kirk: [00:27:02] You know it’s interesting. I keep finding things that I should do. I took over as the president of NAIOP for the largest national…

Eve: [00:27:14] Oh, I know NAIOP well, that was one of the real estate industry events that really turned me off a while back.

Kirk: [00:27:22] Yeah, but that’s been exciting because there’s a whole regulatory piece. I’m skiing every continent of the world so I’m off to New Zealand in August.

Eve: [00:27:33] Oh, close to my home country.

Kirk: [00:27:35] That’s right. And I’ve been there and love it. And Oceania is a destination for us. So, you know, I think BRIEF will be a wonderful thing to bring to fruition and bring ten more BRIEF projects to Small Change and have them bring lots and lots of retail investors into the fold. It’ll be great.

Eve: [00:27:57] Well, we would love that too. So, we’re ready for it.

Kirk: [00:28:00] I know you are.

Eve: [00:28:01] Thank you very much, Kirk. It’s been it’s been a pleasure.

Kirk: [00:28:05] Thank you Eve. You take care.

Eve: [00:28:12] I hope you enjoyed today’s guest and our deep dive. You can find out more about this episode or others you might have missed on the show notes page at RethinkRealEstateforGood.co. There’s lots to listen to there. Please support this podcast and all the great work my guests do by sharing it with others, posting about it on social media, or leaving a rating and a review. To catch all the latest from me, you can follow me on LinkedIn. Even better, if you’re ready to dabble in some impact investing, head on over to smallchange.co where I spend most of my time. A special thanks to David Allardice for his excellent editing of this podcast and original music. And a big thanks to you for spending your time with me today. We’ll talk again soon. But for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Image courtesy of Kirk Sykes

The post BREIF. Boston Real Estate Inclusion Fund. first appeared on Rethink Real Estate. For Good..

The post BREIF. Boston Real Estate Inclusion Fund. appeared first on Rethink Real Estate. For Good..