(Chicago, IL) May 1, 2019—Rob Nahigian, CRE, Principal of Auburndale Realty Company in Newton, MA and Robert Cleary, Jr., CRE, senior vice president of Colliers International in Boston have earned the 2019 James Felt Award for Creative Counseling from The Counselors of Real Estate®. The award celebrates outstanding achievement and ingenuity in real estate counseling by a member of the CRE organization and was presented April 29 in Chicago.The pair was recognized for its site selection, development, lease analysis, and adaptive reuse work in converting a World War II-era U.S. Army ammunition building in Boston’s Seaport District into the new design, fabrication, and manufacturing facility for JC Cannistraro, LLC. The company consolidated operations from Wilmington, Stoughton, and Watertown, MA, into the 320,000 square-foot Art Deco building, relocating existing employees and anticipating growth to total up to 400 jobs in the popular burgeoning development district.Cleary and Nahigian were retained as real estate advisors by Cannistraro in 2014, initially performing a lease audit of Cannistraro’s existing locations, as well as an analysis of relocation sites for a potential consolidation of the company’s multiple office, manufacturing, and warehouse locations. Real estate options included (1) purchasing 10-15 acres of land for the development of new office and manufacturing space of approximately 200,000 square feet; (2) buying an existing commercial building of 150,000-200,000 square feet and renovating it to Cannistraro’s specifications; (3) purchasing an existing facility that could accommodate expansion plans; and (4) leasing a suitable property. Cleary and Nahigian researched more than 100 locations before conducting financial feasibility assessments for several select sites and presenting recommendations.The pair’s four-year corporate advisory assignment resulted in Cannistraro, a manufacturer of plumbing, HVAC, sheet metal, and fire protection systems, signing a 50-year lease valued in excess of $25 million, with two additional 10-year options for a 70-year control period. Significant additional capital was invested in the full historic renovation of the nearly 80-year-old property, which is owned by the Economic Development and Industrial Corporation, a unit of the Boston Planning and Development Agency.“This relationship with the Cannistraro family goes back several decades, and when we identified real estate as a means to bring operational efficiencies to the growing business, the leadership was very excited about the prospect,” said Cleary. “In partnering with Rob Nahigian, we presented a highly knowledgeable and experienced advisory team. It was a demanding process and review, but Cannistraro had the imagination, capacity and capability to realize a truly amazing accomplishment.”The award honors the memory of James “Jack” Felt, CRE, a prominent real estate pioneer, founding father of The Counselors of Real Estate, former chairman of the New York City Planning Commission, and a trustee on many well-known corporate and charitable boards.
Author: Robert
Robert J. Nahigian, FRICS, SIOR, CRE, MCR has fifty years of real estate experience with forty-one years exclusively in commercial and industrial real estate. He has served as a developer, broker, advisor, litigation support/expert witness of approximately $ 5.2 billion of real estate totaling 43 million square feet. He is recognized as a global speaker and author in his industry and has served in many national leadership roles.
Local and national real estate media and publications often called upon him for his expert opinion. He has received national and state real estate accomplishment awards for commercial real estate brokerage and real estate counseling and holds four of the most elite international commercial real estate accreditations in the industry (FRICS, SIOR, CRE, MCR). These designations are earned from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, The Society of Industrial and Office Realtors, The Counselors of Real Estate, and CoreNet Global. He was also elected to an honorary land economics society, Lambda Alpha International (LAI). He has contributed to the publication of four real estate books, has authored over 390 professional articles, and delivered a HUD report to President Carter and U.S. Congress on the most comprehensive study of public housing stock in U.S. history. Rob also drafted the first Economic Development Plan for the City of Bowie, MD.
REAL ESTATE LEADERSHIP ROLES
As an industry leader, he has served on many national, state, and local real estate committees (over 60 committees, subcommittees, task forces). He serves on the Counselors of Real Estate two task forces as a co-chair and member. He has served on the National Board of Directors; past National Vice-Chair Liaison; the National Executive Committee; National Budget & Finance; Presidential Task Forces; past National CRE Editor-in-Chief; past Chair of the James Felt Counseling Award; past New England Chapter President; past Chapter Board of Director and has served as a Chair and Vice-Chair of numerous CRE committees.
For the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors, Rob is a Legacy Member and served on numerous committees and leadership roles including National Editorial Board, National Communications and Branding Committee; National Chair Education; National Chair, Faculty Committee; Education Executive Committee; New England Chapter President; National Nominating Committee; National Budget & Finance; National Board of Directors; National Executive Committee; National Northeast Regional Vice-President; National Vice-Chair of numerous committees; Co-Chair of the Boston Convention; Presidential Task Forces, National Instructor and served over 23 years on the New England Chapter Board of Directors.
He has served on the Boston Board of Directors of the Commercial Brokers Association (CBA) for over 13 years and LAI Board for 5 years. He has served on numerous committees for the Massachusetts Association of Realtors and CBA including Government Affairs, Awards Recognition, Education Committee (in which he served as Co-Chair), Presidential Task Forces, etc.
ACADEMIA AND NATIONAL CONTRIBUTIONS
He also served on many academic faculties and/or has been an invited national speaker. He is an Adjunct Professor at Boston University, a Senior Instructor for SIOR, MA NAIOP, and a past instructor or invited speaker with MAR, Visiting Assistant Professor at RealtorU, CoreNet Global, NAR Commercial Signature Series, Harvard Graduate School of Design, MIT, BAC, Northeastern University, Suffolk University, Lehigh University, and DePaul University. He has spoken at many regional and national conventions for NAI, FIABCI, ONCOR, SIOR, CORFAC International, NAIOP, CCIM, CoStar, Coldwell Banker Commercial Global, AMPI, CRE, Latin American Real Estate Conference, CBRE, Colliers International, and many state Realtor Associations.
APPOINTED INDUSTRY ROLES
Mr. Nahigian was appointed by three Governors to the MADOT Real Estate Appraisal Review Board; was elected by the MA Real Estate Licensing Commission to its CE Education Subcommittee, and has been elected to the Advisory Committee of an NYSE listed real estate investment firm (NERA).
He is a graduate of Lehigh University (cum laude) where he played collegiate Division II baseball and earned his Masters of Science in Urban Planning at Columbia University.
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