Brooklyn Capital Partners LLC
Ove Arup & Partners, PC (Arup)
AE SUPERLAB LLC
Friedman & Gotbaum
Brooklyn Capital Partners (BCP) creates out-of-the-box solutions for large-scale urban challenges. BCP brings together professionals with extraordinary track records in the realms of real estate development, finance and capital markets, public policy, urban infrastructure and design.
BCP was founded by Alexandros Washburn, Chief Urban Designer of the New York City Department of City Planning (2007-2014), first president of the Pennsylvania Station Redevelopment Corporation (1996-2000).
Consortium Partner Philip Yang, a Brazilian entrepreneur, is the founder of URBEM, an international “do tank” devoted to structuring urban, financial and regulatory models for large scale urban projects. His portfolio includes projects in Paris, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and London.
Consortium Partner Ahmed ElHusseiny was Senior Designer and Senior Associate Principal at Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates. He is the founder of AE SUPERLAB LLC and one of the world’s leading young designers.
BCP is chaired by John D. T. Gerber, Chairman and CEO of W-G Capital a private equity real estate and investment advisory business. Mr. Gerber has over 28 years of real estate experience. He served as the President of West Group, LLC and Managing Partner of Four Points, LLC (f/k/a West Group Development Company LLC). Mr. Gerber also worked as Advisor to the Chairman/President (Gerald Halpin, W-G Capital’s Honorary Chairman) for more than ten years at West*Group Properties/Management, which was one of the region’s strongest and oldest real estate investment companies. While there, he was Executive Vice President of the $1 Billion Northern Virginia/Tysons Corner portfolio which included 42 buildings / 5.5 million SF of Office, Flex, and Data Center space, as well as more than 3.6 million SF of residential and office development rights. Among other activities, he developed the strategy to increase the development rights to 12.5 million SF of mixed-use space as well as the disposition strategy for the portfolio. He also served as senior development advisor to Silverstein Properties in the development, management, design, financing, and marketing of the World Trade Center redevelopment in New York. A former Associate Partner of Skidmore Owings & Merrill, Mr. Gerber acted as a Senior Manager of business development, design, master planning, public approvals, and project management, with activities involving approximately 200 million SF of commercial, residential, mixed-use, institutional, and transportation related development projects in the U.S., Asia and the Middle East.
Ove Arup & Partners, PC (Arup), STRUCTURAL AND MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
Leo Argiris, Principal, COO Americas David Farnsworth, PE Lead Structural Engineer
Tom Wilcock Advanced Technology and Research
Wilson Tooru Kikuchi, Independent Engineer
Jose Ayres de Campos, Independent Engineer
Ove Arup & Partners, PC (Arup) is a global design and business consulting firm whose work is characterized by outstanding solutions, creativity and value. Formed in 1946, the firm now has over 13,000 staff members based in 90 offices in 35 nations, and projects in more than 160 countries.
Arup established its first North American office in San Francisco in 1985, then expanded to New York three years later. Arup has now have nine offices and 1,300 employees throughout the continent.
Its staff brings together professionals from our three business areas – buildings, infrastructure and consulting – on a uniquely global scale. The resulting synergies between in-house engineers, managers, financial experts, contract specialists, environmental professionals and more adds tremendous value for clients. Our depth of expertise and sheer numbers of specialists allow us to successfully deliver complex, strategic projects that no other firm has the capacity to manage.
With 10,000 projects going on at any one time, Arup consistently aims to realize the best possible solutions for current and future generations. Put simply, Arup people are driven to find a better way. Placing sustainability at the heart of our work is one of the ways that Arup exerts a positive influence on the wider world.
Arup’s independent ownership structure gives conviction a place in its decision-making, alongside the needs of clients and commercial imperatives. The result is clear-sighted, thoughtful decisions about Arup’s priorities both as a business and as a member of society.
AE SUPERLAB LLC, DESIGN
Ahmed ElHusseiny, Partner
Founded in 2014 in Red Hook, Brooklyn by Ahmed ElHusseiny, AE Superlab is a collaborative design office, operating at the intersection of art, architecture, engineering, and technology.
Prior to founding AE Superlab, Ahmed was Senior Designer and Senior Associate Principal at Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, one of the worlds leading international architectural practices, where he was responsible for the design and development of a broad range of mixed use, commercial, retail, and residential projects throughout Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Key projects include Parc Du Millenaire Buildings 3 and 4 in Paris, Qiantan Center in Shanghai, Forum 66 Hang Lung Plaza in Shenyang, the H Residences in Cairo, as well as proposals for the supertall Tower 111 in Dubai and LG headquarters in New Jersey. Ahmed received his Masters Degree in Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where his studies focused on the interplay of architecture, technology, and narrative storytelling.
Ahmed has received numerous awards and recognitions, including being named by Wallpaper* magazine among the “Worlds Best Young Architects”. Most recently, AE Superlab was awarded the PinUP 2014 Emerging talent Jury award. Ahmed teaches, lectures, and is a frequent visiting critic at a number of universities including MIT, Harvard, Pratt Institute, Parsons, and NJIT.
Friedman & Gotbaum, LAND USE COUNSEL
Friedman & Gotbaum represents real estate, corporate and institutional clients in their land use applications and associated environmental reviews before a number of agencies regulating zoning and historic preservation in New York City. In 2013, Friedman & Gotbaum served as land use counsel shepherding complex approvals for three of the more prominent “legacy” projects of the Bloomberg Administration: a new 950,000 sf campus in Manhattan for an ambulatory care facility for Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and a new healthcare building for CUNY/Hunter College, development of the “New York Wheel,” the world’s largest observation wheel and 1 million sf of related facilities on Staten Island, and the advancement of the New York Proton Therapy Center in Harlem on behalf of a six-hospital consortium. Friedman & Gotbaum’s EDC-related land use work continues with representing BFC Partners, Taconic Partners and L&M Development, the three designated developers of the 1.65 million sf mixed-use “Essex Crossing,” a nine block undeveloped tract on Manhattan’s lower east side. Fried- man & Gotbaum’s client list extends to major real estate developers, NYC cultural institutions, national corporations, hotels, hospitals and retail facilities. In 2010, Friedman & Gotbaum had the privilege of representing Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf with regard to the Islamic Cultural Center near the site of the former World Trade Center.
Hamilton Brook Smith Reynolds, Intellectual Property
Hamilton Brook Smith Reynolds, a full-service intellectual property law firm, offers solutions in the full spectrum of Intellectual Property services, including patents, design patents, trademarks,copyrights, trade secrets, licensing, agreements, counseling and IP disputes. Along with the scientific and technical knowledge of its staff, HBSR delivers exceptional service while solving complex legal issues.
With a history of over 35 years and 45 attorneys, patent agents, and technology specialists, HBSR has developed a broad base of clients from all over the world, including large corporations, universities and research institutions, small high technology start-up companies, independent inventors, as well as venture capitalists.
the halo 