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Bio
Anthony Lanier founded EastBanc in 1987 and is involved in all development decisions and the strategic direction of the firm. Over the course of his career Anthony has co-developed over four million Sq ft. of mixed use commercial Real Estate in multiple countries.
Anthony and his team offer superior local market expertise with substantial positive experience in successful zoning entitlement, neighborhood advisory political negotiations and large-scale Class A mixed-use development planning.
B.A. Vienna University (Austria) – Economics and Political Science
Show Notes
- “Offense and Defense”- Start off as transaction people and then once one has made a couple deals and then become operations people (5:30)
- He likes the “offense” or deal side of the business and his colleagues do operations (6:40)
- His son and others are the “defense” side (7:00)
Origins and Education
- Origins (7:20)
- Grew up in Austria, but born in Brazil (7:30)
- Shortly after birth his family moved to St. Louis, MO (7:45)
- Father was American and raised in NY (8:00)
- Grandfather was a Naval officer and lawyer (8:30)
- Grandmother was American
- Mother was Austrian and several others lived in St. Louis when he was growing up (8:50)
- Father was American and raised in NY (8:00)
- Moved to Austria when his Mother decided to move back home (9:45)
- Grew up in a “ski town” in Austria (10:20)
- Father worked in Geneva, Switzerland and commuted to his town in Austria (10:30)
- Skied downhill to school in the winter (11:00)
- Moved to Vienna at 10 yrs. old (12:15)
- Jesuit boarding school in Vienna
- Attended the University of Vienna (12:45)
- Studied Economics
- Preferred staying in Austria rather than going to America for college (14:00)
- Married young to a Portugese woman (15:00)
Career Start
- Started working in real estate in Vienna as it had emerged from its war damage (15:50)
- Interpul- Office building developer in Austria
- FHA mortgage business- Middle Eastern capital flowed through Vienna investing in US mortgages (16:45)
- Set up a company to invest in the US (17:30)
- Joined DRG Financial in Washington DC in 1980 (18:30)
- Moved to Bethesda, MD from England (19:30)
- Worked there 7 years
Eastbanc Real Estate
- Started his own company- Eastbanc in 1987 (20:15)
- Migrated from financing to development (20:45)
- Markets went into the tank (22:30)
- Bought a shopping center in Norfolk, VA during the crisis (22:50)
- Beginning of “power” centers- JANAF Shopping Center (23:30)
- Bass Brothers helped him buy the mortgage from RTC (24:30)
- Sold interest in 1998 after leasing it up (25:50)
- Started acquiring retail properties in Georgetown and office buildings in Downtown Washington (26:50)
- Equity relationship with TMW (German investor) (27:15)
- Returned to development with the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Georgetown with Millenium Partners (28:10)
- Site was sold by the City of Washington (29:00)
- He assembled the site with several parcels for an entire block in Georgetown with some lots costing considerably different than others (29:20)
- PKF & Shalom Baranes were architects (32:40)
- Bought 50 buildings in Georgetown (35:10)
- Institutional partners changed after the GFC in 2008 and he aligned with Jamestown at that time (35:30)
- Cady’s Alley– Evolved from aggregating several smaller buildings to attract capital from German partners (36:20)
- 120,000 s.f. project (37:30)
- Mary Mottershead was Project Manager (38:45)
- 5 buildings aimed toward building products (40:00)
- Kafe Leopold (confluence of Brazilian and Austrian design)(41:30)
- Water Street residential (43:30)
- Westlight– Combination of luxury condominiums and apartment rentals (45:00)
- Squash on Fire (46:20)
- DC Public Library is owned by the DC Government and part of the project (49:30)
- Residences at Eastern Market– Mixed use project adjacent to Metro station on a ground lease (51:20)
- Jamestown is partner
- Silva– A 10 story project on 16th St. NW at a high point (55:45)
- Concrete buildings-58:00
Other Investments
- Lifestyle business
- Restaurants (59:00)
- Technology (1:02:00)
- Friend in Europe brought him into the internet business in the 1990s (1:03:00)
- Met with Andy Grove (1:04:00)
- Son in law is a Russian technologist who started a software company (1:06:00)
- Microsoft relationship (1:09:00)
- International investments
- Dabbled in Russia (1:10:00)
- Portugal projects (1:11:20)
- Not profitable and hard to scale
Pandemic Influences
- Change approaches to manage pandemic issues (1:14:00)
- Pivot and bring flexibility to retail (1:15:00)
- More than one retailer vying for each space now in retail (1:16:00)
- Sharing risk of occupancy (1:17:00)
- Leased over 500,000 s.f. in both New York and Washington during the pandemic (1:20:30)
- Speed of acceleration of interest rates and inflation is challenging (1:22:00)
- Liquidity to persevere through the “road bump” will be less affected
- Market will be challenged
- Urban centers will suffer the most as they rely on commuting occupants (1:23:00)
- Most of his friends are uncertain about opportunities now (1:26:00)
- US has rarely looked at long term impacts for buildings in past development (1:27:00)
- Building a residential project that is resilient is difficult with existing stock of office buildings for retrofit today (1:29:00)
- Negative leverage doesn’t incentivize development (1:32:00)
- Skeptical that inflation in rents will offset costs and interest rate increases (1:33:00)
- Locations are more obvious than timing (1:34:00)
- Understand the real estate in SW DC to evaluate potential retrofit or redevelopment (1:40:00)
Company and Personal Perspectives
- Company (1:42:00)
- Hire people one respects
- Extraordinary group of young leaders
- Highly intelligent and an open mind
- Argumentative and have an opinion
- Mentality is European (1:45:00)
- History is more “pedestrian” in Europe and closes off automobile transportation
- Can’t translate to some people to follow that mode of walking and biking
- Georgetown reminded him of European living
- In Vienna when one has free time, go to the center of the city (1:47:30)
- Georgetown has more parking now than anywhere else in DC (1:50:00)
- Hire people one respects
- ESG
- Eastbanc has always been sensitive to environmental perspective on projects
- Diversity has been a strong part of company- “Is this person intelligent?”
- Reference to Portugese culture (1:53:20)- Need immediacy
- More architects per capita- great architecture there
- Reference to Portugese culture (1:53:20)- Need immediacy
Inspirations & Philosophies
- Inspirational people (1:56:00)
- Oliver Carr, Jr. inspired him
- J. Carter Brown
- Nancy Pearlstein
- Lesson- Buying in Portugal (1:59:30)
- Held on to buildings through crisis there
- Think differently- Jonathan Rose is an influence
- LIfe Priorities
- Giving back is a fluid process throughout life where contribution was critical (2:02:00)
- Family is critical, as well
- Wins
- Discovery of Georgetown
- Loss
- Time is not fungible- can’t get it back
- Spend more time in quality time with others
- Surprise
- The turn it has taken from living a life of growth to the stop of the pandemic and our inability to process it- Universal impact (2:06:00)
- Advice to 25 Yr. Old Self-
- Sit back and map out strategy on where one works (2:08:00)
- Don’t waste time with people who aren’t right
- Make sure what one does makes one happy
- Time is not recoverable
- Billboard Statement- “Strive for Excellence”
Postcript
- Kevin Dean‘s Perspective
- Anthony’s European perspective
- Started in finance to pivot into ownership/sponsorship
- Tricky time in the market
- Perspective of coming from finance into development
- Anthony is a confluence of several influences from Europe
- Appreciated culture of Europe
- Discipline of finance yet cultural interest
- International perspectives of capitalization
- German investors think long term and with scale
- High level people with sophisticated approaches
- Transforming submarkets
- Georgetown
- West End
- Eastern Market/Capital Hill
- Long term perspective is important
- Office market decline has been ongoing for the last 9 years in DC due to sequestration
- Pandemic accelerated it
- Collins Brothers interview suggested that the market is imploding
- Anthony uncertain of future of office, so he pivots to other operating and real estate strategies
- Visionary investor
