One of our most requested guests, David Greaney is the Chief Executive Officer of Synergy, a Boston-based real estate investment and management company that he founded in 2003. Synergy owns and operates over 30 commercial assets in the Greater Boston area, totaling nearly 7 million square feet. Over 500 companies, retailers, and organizations occupy space in the Synergy-owned portfolio.

Greaney has played a pivotal role in shaping Boston’s economy and downtown landscape, recently leading transformative acquisitions such as 99 High Street, 101 Arch Street, and 1 Liberty Square. His vision for integrating investment, asset management, leasing, construction, property management, accounting, and hospitality has positioned Synergy as a leader in delivering tenant-focused, amenity-driven spaces that consistently outperform market benchmarks.

Beyond commercial real estate, Greaney is deeply invested in Boston’s hospitality scene, with ownership in over a dozen restaurants that bring vibrancy, foot traffic, and jobs to the city’s core. He also works closely with Governor Healey’s Administration to address Massachusetts’ housing crisis, focusing on adaptive reuse opportunities.

Active in civic and industry leadership, Greaney serves on the boards of NAIOP Massachusetts and the Downtown Boston Alliance. Since relocating from Ireland in 1995, he has raised millions for philanthropic causes on both sides of the Atlantic, including Bridge Over Troubled Waters and The Ireland Funds. Greaney has received many accolades for his leadership in Boston, including being recognized for two consecutive years in the Boston Business Journal’s “Power50: Movement Makers” list, and Synergy has received the Commercial Broker’s Association “Landlord of the Year” Award.

Greaney is a graduate of the University College Dublin. Prior to founding Synergy, he worked at Harvard Management Company and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Greaney resides on the South Shore of Massachusetts with his wife and seven children. In his free time, he enjoys traveling and playing golf.

From Mike & Tom: This was a fun one for us! Dave Greaney is a legendary investor in the Boston market, and in this interview he shares with our listeners a rare, behind-the-curtain look at Synergy. From Dave’s serendipitous beginnings in the US on a summer work visa, through his early investing lessons and the evolution of Synergy as one of Boston’s largest and most active commercial landlords, we covered it all in this candid conversation. Thank you to Dave and the Synergy team for sharing your story, and for your continued friendship, collaboration and partnership with our Newmark Boston office.

For more information on Synergy, visit: https://synergyboston.com/

CoreyFest 2025! We hope you will consider joining us for our 11th Annual CoreyFest on Saturday, November 11th at House of Blues Boston. One of the flagship events of the Corey C. Griffin Foundation, CoreyFest this year will feature local favorites Dalton & the Sheriffs and headliner Dustin Lynch. We are expecting an 11th consecutive sold-out crowd, so please reach out to us today for sponsorship opportunities or visit https://www.coreycgriffinfoundation.org/initiatives-and-events/coreyfest/ for tickets and more information. Thank you to our clients, friends and listeners for your support of Corey’s Kids!

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Tom Greeley

Ed Pitoniak is Chief Executive Officer and a member of the board of directors of VICI Properties Inc., an S&P 500® experiential real estate investment trust that owns one of the largest portfolios of market-leading gaming, hospitality and entertainment destinations, including Caesars Palace Las Vegas, MGM Grand and the Venetian Resort Las Vegas, three of the most iconic entertainment facilities on the Las Vegas Strip. VICI Properties owns 93 experiential assets across a geographically diverse portfolio consisting of 54 gaming properties and 39 other experiential properties across the United States and Canada. The portfolio is comprised of approximately 127 million square feet and features approximately 60,300 hotel rooms and approximately 500 restaurants, bars, nightclubs and sportsbooks. Its properties are occupied by industry-leading gaming, leisure and hospitality operators under long-term, triple-net lease agreements. VICI Properties has a growing array of real estate and financing partnerships with leading non-gaming experiential operators, including Bowlero, Cabot, Canyon Ranch, Chelsea Piers, Great Wolf Resorts, and Kalahari Resorts and Conventions. VICI Properties also owns four championship golf courses and 33 acres of undeveloped and underdeveloped land adjacent to the Las Vegas Strip. VICI Properties’ goal is to create the highest quality and most productive experiential real estate portfolio through a strategy of partnering with the highest quality experiential place makers and operators.

Previously, Mr. Pitoniak served as Vice Chairman of Realterm, a private equity real estate manager. From 2006 to 2019 Mr. Pitoniak served as an independent director at Ritchie Brothers (NYSE: RBA), the world’s largest auctioneers of construction equipment. In April 2014, Mr. Pitoniak became Managing Director of InnVest, a publicly listed REIT, responsible for recapitalizing the REIT and transitioning its management function from an external, third-party management model, to an internal management model. He then served as Chairman from June 2015 to August 2016, when the REIT was sold and taken private. He also served as a director of Regal Lifestyle Communities (TSE: RLC), a Canadian seniors housing real estate owner and operator, from 2012 until its sale in 2015. Mr. Pitoniak retired in 2009 from the position of President and Chief Executive Officer and Director of bcIMC Hospitality Group, a hotel property and brand ownership entity (formerly a public income trust called Canadian Hotel Income Properties Real Estate Investment Trust (“CHIP”)), where he was employed from 2004 to 2009. As Chief Executive Officer of CHIP, he led the company to four consecutive years of total return leadership among Canadian hotel REITs, and then to a sale in 2007. Mr. Pitoniak was also a member of CHIP’s Board of Trustees before it went private. Prior to joining CHIP, Mr. Pitoniak was a Senior Vice-President at Intrawest Corporation, a ski and golf resort operator and developer, for nearly eight years. Before Intrawest, Mr. Pitoniak spent nine years with Times Mirror Magazines, where he served as editor-in-chief and associate publisher with Ski Magazine. Mr. Pitoniak has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Amherst College.

This was a fascinating discussion for us, and Ed shares with our listeners a highlight real of business and real estate anecdotes picked up throughout his illustrious career. We appreciate Ed spending time with us and are very excited to share this with our Good Dirt community. We look forward to following VICI’s continued growth and enjoying their many amazing properties!

For more information on VICI Properties and its growing portfolio of experiential real estate, visit: www.viciproperties.com

As referenced: In Memoriam, Jack Connors

Todd S. Rich is a Co-Founder, Partner and Head of Real Estate at Declaration Partners and oversees Declaration’s real estate investment activity. Todd brings over 20 years of real estate investing and operating experience including acquisitions, dispositions, development, leasing, and management of portfolios involving over $20 billion of institutional quality real estate.

Declaration Partners is a private investment firm that seeks to be a value-added capital partner and strategic resource to founders & entrepreneurs, management teams, and asset owners. Anchored by the family office of private equity veteran and philanthropist David M. Rubenstein, Declaration invests on behalf of family offices and like-minded institutional investors. Declaration’s approach emphasizes partnership born from its family office heritage while seeking to achieve favorable long-term outcomes with strong alignment. Declaration has approximately $2.2 billion in assets under management across its private investment strategies, which include tactical growth equity, real estate, GP solutions, and other opportunistic strategies. The firm was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in New York with an office in the Washington, DC area.

Prior to forming Declaration Partners, Todd was a Partner at The JBG Companies and a member of its Investment and Management Committees, where he was involved in strategic efforts culminating in the creation of JBG SMITH Properties as a public REIT (NYSE: JBGS). Prior to joining The JBG Companies, Todd was a Managing Director at Tishman Speyer where he was responsible for the business activities of the Washington, DC region and worked in Tishman Speyer’s Chicago, London, and New York offices.

Todd holds a Bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, from Princeton University, and was a US Fulbright Scholar. Todd serves as a board member of the SED Center and the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Washington, and is a former board member of the Economic Club of Washington.

We really enjoyed our discussion with Todd, who is as well-liked as he is respected in the national investment market. Todd shared with us how each stop in his journey equipped him to eventually launch Declaration Partners, a unique opportunity to start a new platform with a bona fide legend of the private equity industry, David Rubenstein. Todd’s perspective on the market and his overview of Declaration’s thoughtful approach will be an interesting listen for all in the real estate and investment management arenas.

For more info on Declaration Partners, please visit: https://declarationpartners.com/

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Tom Greeley

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasgreeley/

tom.greeley@nmrk.com

Mike Greeley

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgreeley1

Michael.greeley@nmrk.com

Jeff Karp is the President and Co-Founder of LAZ Parking LLC, the largest privately held parking operator in the country. Jeff founded LAZ Parking in 1981 and LAZ currently operates over 4,000 locations, in 452 cities and 41 states across the country. With a dedicated and passionate employee base of over 14,000 strong committed to a superior customer service experience, LAZ has been propelled into being a leader in its field. With $2.0 billion in annual revenue, LAZ Parking strives for a best in class culture, focused on conscious capitalism rooted within ESG and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Jeff is also a Founder and Principal Partner in LAZ Parking Reality Investors (LPRI), a vertically integrated real estate platform focused on parking assets nationally. Their mission is to identify, diligence, and acquire parking assets nationwide; finding opportunities to add value through experienced ownership and operation. LPRI’s experience extends over virtually every type of parking asset, from simple surface lots to complex mixed-use garages, and includes assets whose primary demand comes from office, retail, residential, hotels, sporting events and airports.

In addition to his business affiliations, Jeff is an active civic leader and strong supporter and board member of various charitable organizations such as the Special Olympics, Chabad House, Jewish Big Brother Big Sister, Crossroads for Kids, Save the Harbor, National Parking Association, Anti-Defamation League, Combined Jewish Philanthropies, Meriting Attention, and the American Cancer Society.

We really enjoyed our discussion with Jeff, and the story behind the LAZ Parking empire did not disappoint. As discussed during the interview, it seems we can't travel a block or two without coming across a LAZ location. Jeff was candid in sharing the many highs and lows of his entrepreneurial journey, which he has been on alongside his two co-founders who happen to be his boyhood best friends. We learned a lot from Jeff about the operational side of parking business, a sector in which our Boston capital markets team has been increasingly active over the past several years and one that intrigues many real estate practitioners.

For more info on LAZ Parking, please visit: www.lazparking.com

Please share with clients, colleagues and friends and thanks for tuning in!

Tom Greeley

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasgreeley/

tom.greeley@nmrk.com

Mike Greeley

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgreeley1

Michael.greeley@nmrk.com

Frank H. McCourt, Jr. is a civic entrepreneur and the executive chairman and former CEO of McCourt Global, a private family company committed to building a better future through its work across the real estate, sports, technology, media, and capital investment industries, as well as its significant philanthropic activities. Frank is proud to extend his family’s 130-year legacy of merging community and social impact with financial results, an approach that started when the original McCourt Company was launched in Boston in 1893.

He is a passionate supporter of multiple academic, civic, and cultural institutions and initiatives. He is the founder and executive chairman of Project Liberty, a far-reaching, $500 million initiative to transform the internet through a new, equitable technology infrastructure and rebuild social media in a way that enables users to own and control their personal data. The project includes the development of a groundbreaking, open-source internet protocol called the Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DSNP), which will be owned by the public to serve as a new web infrastructure. It also includes the creation of Project Liberty’s Institute (formerly The McCourt Institute,) launched with founding partners Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA, and Sciences Po in Paris, to advance research, bring together technologists and social scientists, and develop a governance model for the internet’s next era.

Frank has served on Georgetown University’s Board of Directors for many years and, in 2013, made a $100 million founding investment to create Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. He expanded on this in 2021 with a $100 million investment to catalyze an inclusive pipeline of public policy leaders and put the school on a path to becoming tuition-free.

Frank owns the French football club Olympique de Marseille (OM) and formerly owned the Los Angeles Dodgers. With family roots in the construction business dating back to the late 19th century, Frank has built upon this history with initiatives ranging from the development of Boston’s Seaport to large, mixed-use projects in Dallas, London, Miami, New York City, and elsewhere.

Frank graduated from Georgetown University. He is married to Monica McCourt and is the proud father of seven.

His book, OUR BIGGEST FIGHT: Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity, and Dignity in the Digital Age, was published by Crown on March 12, 2024.

Our conversation with Frank was eye-opening, thought-provoking and inspiring. As a legendary figure in the Boston real estate industry who has truly ‘gone global’, Frank shared with us his story from the very beginnings in America for the McCourt family all the way through to today, where he has taken on the ambitious task of fixing the internet and the role technology is allowed to play in all of our lives.

For more info on McCourt Global and Project Liberty, please visit: https://www.mccourt.com/ and https://www.projectliberty.io/

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Tom Greeley

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasgreeley/

tom.greeley@nmrk.com

Mike Greeley

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgreeley1

Peter Merrigan is the Chief Executive Officer of Taurus Investment Holdings LLC, a global real estate private equity firm established in 1997 and headquartered in Boston, MA. Taurus focuses on strategic investments into value-add, core-plus, opportunistic and development opportunities. As CEO and a a member of the firms Investment Committee, Peter defines and guides Taurus in developing and executing investment strategies in multifamily, industrial, office , mixed-use and renewable energy sectors across the US and internationally. Peter has overseen the acquisition and development of more than 70 million square feet of commercial space to date with a value in excess of nearly $11 billion.

Peter is an alum of the College of Holy Cross and received a Masters in Real Estate Development (MSRED) from MIT.

Our conversation with Peter starts in the his early days with an internship in the research department of Coldwell Banker, working out of a Wellesley office that was the launching pad for many of the Boston market’s notable figures. Peter then describes the path that gave him his crash course in commercial real estate, starting with renting apartments for the Corcoran family, working for Berkeley Investments, and eventually his connection with the Reibling brothers, leading to a fruitful partnership that spanned several decades.

Peter shares with Taurus’ powerful model of global equity syndication, a ‘machine’ that regularly yields $500m per annum in equity sourced from high net worth family offices from around the world. We also hear about Taurus’ leadership and long history of environmental stewardship, with a thorough explanation of how fusing clean energy, energy efficient technologies, and decarbonization efforts can not only benefit the planet but also create financial returns for Taurus and its investors.

As the leader and owner of a renowned Boston-based firm that has evolved into a leading, forward-thinking global investor, we are thrilled to share Peter’s story and some of the behind-the-scenes anecdotes that brought Taurus to where it stands today.

Please share with clients, colleagues and friends and thanks for tuning in!

For more info on Taurus, please visit: https://www.tiholdings.com/

Tom Greeley

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasgreeley/

tom.greeley@nmrk.com

Mike Greeley

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgreeley1

Michael.greeley@nmrk.com

John Fish is Chairman & CEO of Suffolk, a national real estate enterprise that builds, innovates and invests. Under John’s vision and leadership, Suffolk has grown into one of the most successful privately held builders in the United States, with $6 billion in revenue, 2,600 employees, and a value proposition, commitment to innovation and corporate culture that is redefining the built world. Suffolk truly is “America’s contractor” and manages some of the most complex, sophisticated projects in the country, serving clients in every major industry sector, including healthcare, life sciences, education, gaming, transportation/aviation, government, mission critical and commercial. With main offices in Boston (headquarters), New York City, Miami, West Palm Beach, Tampa, Estero, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Virginia and Maine, Suffolk is omnipresent in active real estate markets around the country.

John is a fixture on numerous Boards focused on economic stability and real estate industry growth. He is the Chair of the Real Estate Roundtable, a non-partisan organization that represents the largest and most successful real estate developers in the country and is the most influential voice in Washington, D.C. for more equitable policies for economic growth.

John also serves as Chair of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, sits on the Executive Committee of Mass General Brigham, and is the Chair of the Board at Boston College, his second time serving and the first non-alum to ever fulfill that role. In recent years, John has chaired both the Boston Chamber of Commerce and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and he is a founding member and director of the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership (MACP).

Our conversation with John begins with an overview of the ever-innovating Suffolk, including a discussion around Suffolk’s platform verticals which support the core mission of the company. We then take a step back, and hear from John about his academic experiences at Tabor Academy and Bowdoin College, tackling and embracing his dyslexia, and his entry into the construction industry, in which the Fish family had deep roots. We then move onto the formation of Suffolk, the early years and the evolution of the company in its early years as a non-union business. John shares with us candid insights into the challenges and struggles of growing the company in a politically-charged construction environment, and the relationship building that served as a catalyst for long-term growth of the company.

We cover a lot of ground outside of Suffolk, and John was generous in sharing his unique perspective on policy, politics, and economic issues at hand today in the US. Finally and maybe most importantly, we discuss John and Cyndy Fish’s extraordinary commitment to caring for their community, and their incredible leadership in countless philanthropic endeavors.

This was one of our most-requested and highly-anticipated guests, and we sincerely appreciate John sharing his time and insights with us and our Good Dirt audience. We look forward to having him back again!

For more information on Suffolk, visit www.suffolk.com

Tom Greeley

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasgreeley/

tom.greeley@nmrk.com

Mike Greeley

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgreeley1

Rachel Diller serves as Senior Managing Director, Acquisitions and Co-Chief Investment Officer for Bridge Investment Group, a $50bn+ AUM multi product real estate investor, where she oversees the Bridge Workforce & Affordable Housing strategy. Rachel has over 20 years of experience in real estate and finance and has capitalized 120+ real estate projects worth $3.6 billion in 23 states. Rachel joined Bridge from UrbanView Capital, a specialist real estate fund manager dedicated to sustainable and impact investing. Prior to that, she was a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs in the firm’s Urban Investment Group (UIG), a principal investing platform that deploys capital to underserved domestic urban markets. Previously, she was a Managing Director in the Commercial Real Estate Group of Centerline Capital Group.

Rachel began her career as a New York City Urban Fellow, developing transitional housing projects for New York City’s Department of Homeless Services, where she was the Director of Facility, Planning and Development. Rachel serves on the board of Corporation for Supportive Housing and is an Adjunct Professor in Columbia Business School’s Real Estate MBA Program. She earned a BA in Urban Studies from University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Our conversation with Rachel starts at Penn and moves into her ‘bleeding heart’ days in the public sector working for the City of New York. We hear about her pivot into the private sector and how her roots in housing affordability have stayed with her throughout her career and into her current role with Bridge. Rachel and Bridge’s novel approach to taking care of the community, not just the bricks and mortar, is not only commendable but is ultimately accretive to Bridges’ investments.

We greatly enjoyed this conversation and working with Rachel and her team on their acquisition of The Suburban Boston Value-Add Portfolio in 2023.

Tom Greeley

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasgreeley/

tom.greeley@nmrk.com

Mike Greeley

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgreeley1

Michael.greeley@nmrk.com