https://icons-of-dc-area-real-estate.castos.com/player/1226183
Bio
Vicki Davis is a Managing Partner, and co-founder of Urban Atlantic. While overseeing development and asset management for Urban Atlantic, Ms. Davis has managed the development of more than $3 billion in real estate projects and overseen a portfolio in excess of $5 billion in real estate investments. Her 30-year real estate career includes serving as Deputy Director of the Maryland Housing Fund and its Housing and Community Development’s Division of Credit Assurance, as well as portfolio management for MNC Financial’s South Charles Realty Corp. and multifamily development for Trammell Crow Residential. She has developed more than 10,000 multifamily residential units and nearly 3 million commercial square feet for Urban Atlantic, including 11 large-scale public-private redevelopments for local jurisdictions, transit authorities, and public housing authorities in DC, Virginia, Maryland, Florida, North Carolina, New Jersey, and Tennessee.
Ms. Davis holds an MBA in Finance from American University, an MS in Engineering & Construction Management from the University of Texas, and a BS in Civil Engineering from the University of Maryland. She serves on the Boards of the DC Building Industry Association, Capitol Riverfront Business Improvement District, ULI Terwilliger Center, and CulturalDC.
Show Notes
- Founder and Managing Partner responsible for Development and Asset Management of the company (4:15)
- Lois Fried, Co-Managing Partner responsible for Finance
- Scott Nordheimer, Senior Advisor
- Origins (5:30)
- Grew up in Georgetown as a middle child of three girls (5:40)
- Parents
- Dad was a builder and an owner/developer (5:50)
- Mom was an interpreter for Presidents and others and was an immigrant from Chile during the “McCarthy Era” (6:15)
- Interpreted in courts and Berlitz
- English, Spanish, German & French simultaneously (8:00)
- Attended German School in Santiago, Chile
- Gave her the cosmopolitan life
- “Family Power“- Report for work after school to rent and maintain apartments in the portfolio (7:00)
- Relationship with Jim Davis (10:40)
- Jim’s Father was a diligent worker to lead his company at the time (11:00)
- Vicki’s Father had a falling out with his younger brother, Jim
- Vicki’s Mother, being an immigrant, was shunned by her in-laws
- Her Father and Uncle reconciled in the 1980s (12:15)
- Her Aunts were “makers” like her Father and Uncle (12:50)
- Family owned the Beall Dawson House in Rockville, MD (13:15)
- Davis family renovated the house
Education
- Attended the German International School Broad exposure to language- English, German, French and Latin (14:00)
- Traditional education with German educational system
- International influence significant
- Open mindedness
- Traveled through Europe as a child with her education
- Attended the University of Maryland Engineering School studying Civil Engineering (17:15)
- Lived at home
- Went to sailing camp in France in Brittany (English Channel)
- Internship in a valve factory in France
- Civil Engineering- loved math
- 25% of engineering school were and are women
- Friend of Carlo Colella
- Her Mother recommended she attend graduate school and looked at Stanford and Texas
- Attended University of Texas in Austin, TX fully funding her graduate education in Construction Management- Architectural Engineering (24:00)
- Mentor was John Stull of Bechtel Corp. who built major infrastructure buildings- oil rigs, etc.
- While in school her Dad had a heart attack and surgery so she returned to Maryland (27:00)
Career
- Began career at Kaiser Engineers (ICF) in Virginia (28:20)
- Naval Contracts, Conveyor systems, & personnel services
- While at Kaiser she attended American University for her Masters in Business Administration (30:25)
- Subsequently joined Trammell Crow Residential (From 1986-1990) (32:00)
- Innovations of Trammell Crow Company- Cross collateralization of portfolio (33:30)
- Began building new apartment projects (34:30)
- “Chase” projects (34:45)
- Chase Grove– 678 units in Gaithersburg
- Chase Ridge– Fairland, Montgomery County, MD (36:00)
- Dan Merrill, Crow Terwilliger & Michaux
- 432 Units
- Story about drug dealing
- Story about Trammell Crow himself coming to the project when it was being built (37:30)
- Chase Knoll, Chase Mill, Falkland Chase
- Niles Bolton Architects
- Philosophy of “biggest and nicest interiors” and less quality on the outside
- Likes residential because she likes to serve people
- Laid off in 1990 right before her wedding
- Moved to Deerfield Beach, FL with her new husband and almost joined Alamo Rent a Car (46:30)
- Her partner, Lois Fried, approached her to join South Charles Realty and she did join them (47:15)
- Richard Perlmutter (47:50)
- Paid almost twice what she earned at Trammell Crow Residential
- Manual of what to say because of the nature of the company’s business being a “workout” shop
- Attorneys and appraisers took over the market as properties had virtually no value
- She was 26 yrs. old at that time and had to work through criminal investigations
- American Security Bank, Maryland National Bank, Virginia Federal S&L
- Big learning experience
- Let go in 1994
- Karen Wilkerson, her friend, told her that she had the job for her…work at the State of Maryland Housing (52:45)
- Maryland Housing Fund (53:15)
- Worked for Earl DeMaris
- Co-managing 80 people there
- Kindest people she ever worked with
- She was asked to take over “Asset Management” by the Secretary of Housing- a story about taking on new responsibilities
- Margaret MacFarland– General Counsel
- Multifamily and Single Family Loans- Insured loans
- Reported to Moody’s
- Workforce housing financing- No down payment loans to smaller houses
- Philanthropic people
- Felt other people’s pain- empathetic people
- Governor Shafer came to them to ask to tear down a property in Mt. Pleasant area in Baltimore
- Basic housing full of drug dealers and hookers
- Picked up a gun in the gutter
- Private sector RFP to work it out
- Team that took it over included Gene Ford (Midcity Financial) and Bill Streuver
- Turned residents into leasing agents
- 8 sources of financing (Stone soup)
- Case study for Hope VI program (HUD) (1:07:40)
Urban Atlantic
- In Fall of 1997, Scott Nordheimer, her Senior Advisor, and she formed the partnership called Urban Atlantic, the current company (1:07:55)
- First assignment was to secure a Hope VI project in Holyoke, MA (1:09:20)
- Section 8 was created for “poor white people” to give them public housing
- City of Baltimore sued HUD for discrimination and won the case
- Hope VI Program- Private partnerships formed with state housing agencies (1:09:45)
- Mixed income housing
- Arthur Capper Carrollsburg project– conversion of 300 seniors occupants and 400 former Army barracks- work with residents- Fee payments for large projects
- Henson Ridge in DC’s Ward 8 (1:17:00)
- Thesis for the project- “suburban location” and thought she could do townhouses there
- Homebuilders could build 30% cheaper- did a field trip with residents to see the units
- Couldn’t recruit national homebuilders
- Beazer Homes– Don Knutson became their partner to build the project (280 homes)- hired 70% minority subcontractors
- Win, Win, Win
- Seed money from HUD and then was layered with tax credits and bond debt with DCHCD (1:22:00)
- Mayor Marion Barry‘s mother lived in her project in Memphis (1:22:40)
- Herb Miller‘s relationship with Marion Barry
- DC’s transition (1:25:45)
- Pioneering multi-layer financing for private sector deals with her partners’ experiences (1:27:40)
- What’s missing? (1:28:40)
- Retail, job opportunities, business opportunities
- New Market Tax Credit Program (1:29:00)
- UDAG program
- Gene Ford provided seed capital for Urban Atlantic (1:30:50)
- Lois Fried is good at raising capital (she was at Oxford with Tom Bozzuto)
- Penny pincher
- Project has to be constructable, financeable, value oriented, “screaming value” to entice people of all incomes to be successful (1:32:00)
- Public Private Partnerships (1:32:30)
- Good partners- do what they say
- Many times the community selects them…listening to people (1:33:20)
- Aware of what motivates people- “win, win solutions“
- Partners start inside a company- Scott and Lois are her best friends (1:34:50)
- Next layer of partners have been there 15 years
- Reference to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel project- TIF financing in DC (1:36:00)
- Specialize in complicated projects that other companies won’t take on (1:38:45)
- Bring together a breadth of skills to develop
Projects
- Arthur Capper project- JV with Brookfield, 20 years in the making (1:40:45)
- Henson Ridge– Two separate public housing projects combined to make 600 townhouse project
- Parkside by Chris Smith was their neighbor
- Skyhouse with JBG Companies– Waterside buildings in brutalist style (1:43:00)
- 20% affordable housing required
- Instead of 164 units per building, increase to 260 units per building an affordable units could be built without allocation for affordability
- Post tension construction building
- 2,000 holes per building
- Outside skin remained the same by adding balconies
- Parking shared with office
- The Parks at Walter Reed (1:50:50)
- Community stakeholders had been working on plans for the site for 8 years
- DC asked them to vision out the site before the RFP
- Perkins Will discussion
- NOI Partners- DC procured certain partners (1:52:00)
- Multiple ANCs were already setting goals for the development
- Assembling the “right team” and she knew Bill Alsup of Hines and subsequently Chuck Watters to be partners (1:54:00)
- Reached out to community leaders and ANC leaders (1:55:00)
- One woman told her that all developers are “full of s___”
- Public forum meeting- Shepherd Park Library
- One person was not known (competitor)
- Leaders in the community offered suggestions
- They did exactly the plan that the community asked for (1:58:00)
- Hung a banner with quizzes that traffic on Georgia Ave. NW and could read and respond to the survey and over 2,000 people responded (1:59:25)
- Listen to what people want
- Presented to four ANCs and every one of them voted for the Urban Atlantic team (1:59:45)
- One woman told her that all developers are “full of s___”
- Walter Reed is an iconic property and almost any developer would be honored to develop this project (2:01:30)
- Hines was eager to be involved in the project
- Hospital building built in 1977 by Blake Construction (2:04:30)
- Concrete structure and a steel plenum
- Building needed to be deconstructed and recycled
- Senior housing was the first part of the project
- Mixed income residents in the project
- Affordable senior assisted living facility there
- Combination of housing and medical subsidies
- Land is 99 yr. ground lease in an Opportunity Zone and has New Market Tax Credits (2:07:40)
- Master development with 23 components with individual financing
- Use replicable models to apply this complexity
- Eagle Bank is their partner here and in other large projects
- Capital One (Sadhvi Subramanian) financed the first vertical project there
- PGIM and Bridge Investments with financing
- Divided the project between Urban Atlantic and Hines to lead each component
- Website
- History project there
- Story about a Civil War battle at Fort Stevens nearby
- New Carrollton (2:15:00)
- Chosen in 2012 to redevelop the project with Forest City (now Brookfield) (Debby Ratner Salzberg)
- Had developed Rhode Island Metro Station, so WMATA knew them
- 49 acre site the best multi-modal transportation location in the State of Maryland (Metro Orange Line, Amtrak, MARC, Purple Line, and roads)
- Challenging project to envision
- She got a call from Lorena Gonzalez of Kaiser Permanente to pursue a large office project at New Carrollton in an RFP and won the project and it became the anchor for the project (2:17:50)
- Woody Bolton of Perseus was brought in as a partner
- Gensler Architects
- 800 feet of garage with “billboards” for Kaiser on rail tracks
- Opportunity Zone, New Market Tax Credits, & Low Income Housing Tax Credits
- The Stella Apartments
- WMATA Headquarters (Maryland version) (DC and Virginia have their own headquarters buildings) (2:22:30)
- Amazon provided financing for workforce housing at the site (2:23:40)
- Armed Forces Retirement Home (2:28:30)
- NCPC has approved the preliminary project
- Planning a resort on the property
Philosophy & Lessons Learned
- Coordination of projects with various stakeholders (2:33:00)
- Weekly meetings with key stakeholders
- Consensus among partners
- Good organizational tools and strong accounting abilities
- Reference to Donna Shafer at Scotts Run in Tysons Corner
- Developments in emerging markets (2:37:15)
- Focus on a good mix, feasibility
- Goals for affordability, great places
- Cycles require adaptability of projects
- Rules of thumb for various uses
- Site that can serve different uses
- Site needs to “produce” from a metrics perspective (2:40:40)
- Portfolio of properties in many states of affordable tax credit housing (2:41:30)
- Not in the property management business and have multiple management companies working for them (2:42:00)
- Potentially will own a management company
- COVID disrupted many tenants and some tenants have still not paid rent even when capable (2:43:30)
- Difficult time for people that took advantage of the system…some tenants owe $50,000 in back rent
- Lessons learned (2:46:00)
- Pick quality partners (both public and private)
- Communicate and listen to all stakeholders and incorporate feedback
- Development is a risk/reward proposition (2:48:00)
- Preference to build out developments
- Bring know how to both multifamily and office development (2:48:30)
- Know building topologies
- “Secret sauce” in construction and financing (2:49:00)
- Taking care of the less fortunate members of society
- The right thing to do (2:49:40)
- Community richer with diversity and inclusion- better places
- Public housing began as a mix and then was classified differently (2:51:00)
- Poverty in the US (2:51:15)
- People in her neighborhood in Bethesda, MD bought their homes 50 years ago and have paid off their mortgage and by definition is in “affordable housing”
- On affordable housing- “Where there is a will there is a way” (2:53:00)
- Proud of DC setting the goal of having affordable housing in every Ward in the city
- Uses tools for financing
- DC put $500MM in a housing trust fund for a city of 800,000 people
- Capital goes where it is welcome and stays where it is treated well
- Leverage public money with private money
- Case Study- Capital Riverfront has transformed since she has been there into the highest demographic area in the city (2:55:30)
- Women in the real estate business (2:57:30)
- Best time to be in the business- normative for asking about ESG goals
- More help and mentorship now
- Find good support groups to grow
- Work really hard and don’t say no
- Carpe Diem (2:58:45)
- Prioritized New Market Tax Credit investments toward women’s, minority and ESOP companies (2:59:30)
- Tell women to get an education in real estate (3:00:00)
- ESOP is a good vehicle for fee for services businesses (3:00:30)
- Pandemic impacts (3:01:50)
- Pipeline so active that people are working long hours and like being in the office for cultural reasons
- Staff is 50% women and 25% minorities (3:02:50)
- Hiring characteristics
- Smart, hard working, team member, nice people, good work ethic (3:03:45)
- Treat it as an owner (3:04:15)
- Family (3:04:30)
- Three children
- Married to husband for 32 years
- Giving back (3:05:00)
- Align with services among people within their projects
- Take care of people in their real estate
- Seed money for projects
- Inspirations
- Ron Terwilliger- after his career went on to lead Habitat for Humanity (3:06:20)
- Chairs Terwilliger Foundation
- Political leaders
- Ron Terwilliger- after his career went on to lead Habitat for Humanity (3:06:20)
- Wins
- Community functions- serving a breadth of people (3:07:40)
- Loss
- Fires at projects both early and later in her career (3:08:10)
- Surprising event
- Kaiser Permanente for New Carrollton project (3:09:15)
- Nationals Stadium announcement when it happened (3:09:45)
- Excited about how DC has evolved
- Amazon coming to the DC area- model for corporate America (3:10:30)
- Advice to 25 yr. old self- Always keep your eyes open and listen and always be kind if you can (3:11:00)
- Billboard statement- Yes we can! (3:12:00)
Postscript
- Colin Madden suggests that Vicki is tenacious and empathetic (3:13:00)
- Enjoyed story about Trammell Crow caring about his property
- Trammell Crow Memorandum
- Financial crisis in late 1980s early 1990s
- Workout process- South Charles Realty
- CMBS Market creation
- Surge of REIT IPOs (UPREIT)
- She is a mile wide and a mile deep
- Survey of community for Parks at Walter Reed project
- Reference to Bryant Foulger interview about community needs
- Be ready to be surprised with an opportunity in reference to the win of Kaiser Permanente at New Carrollton
- Allocation of uses- alchemy
- Armed Forces Retirement project
- Partnerships-
- Affordable housing is contextual
