Commercial Observer's debatable Power 100 List: Gilmartin (& partners) at 26; Greenland's Hu at 42 (no building start yet)

The 2018 iteration of the Commercial Observer's always debatable Power 100 list of the most powerful people in real estate lacks any entrant from Forest City Ratner/Forest City New York. That's understandable, since the company has essentially given up on ground up development (as I wrote for The Bridge) and has lost key executives, with Bruce Ratner said to be retired.

But the project has changed, as the Commercial Observer notes:

The project now goes by the name Pacific Park, Ratner has retired, the Gehry plan was ditched and the main owner is the Chinese-based company Greenland USA. Welcome to the list, Greenland USA head Hu Gang.

So Gang is on the list, and so is Forest City's former CEO, MaryAnne Gilmartin, in her new position as co-founder of L&L MAG. The question is whether they deserve their rankings, and I'd say the jury is very much out.

L&L MAG, 26

26. MaryAnne Gilmartin, Robert Lapidus and David Levinson

The article notes that Lapidus and Levinson were last year ranked 41, and Gilmartin was 67 (unmentioned: with Forest City Realty Trust CEO David LaRue). The new team may well do significant projects together, but, with nothing announced yet, the ranking seems premature.

From the article:

In the final year of her 23 years at Forest City, Gilmartin helped restructure Pacific Park (formerly Atlantic Yards) in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Partner Greenland USA now controls 95 percent of the 22-acre megaproject, and Forest City has just 5 percent.

She was also involved in helping find a buyer for 461 Dean Street within Pacific Park, the 32-story modular tower that Forest City sold to Principal Global Investors for $156 million last month. It was a fitting end to her time at the company, after she spent more than a decade pushing Atlantic Yards through a byzantine public approval process.

Ah, but what are the numbers? We don't know yet what Greenland USA paid for all but 5% of Forest City's remaining share of the project, so we don't know whether that was much of a win for Gilmartin and her team. After all, Gilmartin was saying everything was hunky-dory at Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park during the year in which the sale was being renegotiated.

We do know that the price for 461 Dean, though said to be at an attractive cap rate, was well below the cost of construction of the troubled modular building.

Greenland's leader is lower

42. Hu Gang

Does the President and CEO of Greenland USA really deserve this ranking? The Commercial Observer squib doesn't give us much to go on.

It quotes the January press release regarding the restructuring and also states:

This year started with a bang for Greenland USA as the developer announced it was increasing its ownership interest in the $5 billion Pacific Park project in Brooklyn (to 95 percent from 70 percent) as part of the restructuring of Greenland Forest City Partners, its joint venture development partnership with Forest City. With the increase, Greenland now has primary responsibility for developing the 22-acre, 15-building project—which is being constructed on a site adjacent to Barclays Center in Prospect Heights—while Forest City now only has a 5 percent ownership stake.

That says nothing about the terms of the Greenland-Forest City deal, or the company's prospects and plans for getting new buildings started, since they haven't announced anything publicly, though the big B4 tower is being planned, with an expected Q2 2019 launch.

The squib also states that "Greenland has been keeping busy with its $1 billion Metropolis complex under development in Downtown Los Angeles," but acknowledges that Greenland is selling the hotel within it and one of the three residential towers.

Maybe that's wise leadership by Hu. But it also indicates some uncertainty for Greenland. Either way, it has nothing to do with power in New York City.