Students engage city in study of real estate development
Nick Sinatra, a Buffalo developer who teaches real estate development in UB's MS in Architecture program, leads students through his project at a converted brewery in downtown Buffalo.
By Rachel Teaman
Published April 14, 2016 This content is archived.
At first glance, the group of hard-hatted visitors to the historic Phoenix Brewery loft conversion project in downtown Buffalo looked like any other tour. Huddled together, they listened intently to their guide and craned their necks upward.
But this was hardly your typical building tour.
It opened with a lesson on historic tax credit financials – offered by the developer himself, Buffalo’s up-and-coming Nick Sinatra. From there, tour-goers followed the project architect through the roughed-out units to learn about floorplan design and rentable square feet. Later, the construction manager stepped in to explain that seemingly small decisions, such as laying the floor last (to simplify installation), can save a project countless hours of labor.
A closer look under those hard hats would reveal not tourists, but eager students – specifically, members of UB's Master of Science in Architecture program who have chosen to focus their studies on real estate development.
Initiated last fall to meet the needs of a growing and increasingly complex profession, the new MS in Architecture course of study in the School of Architecture and Planning is brought to life by Buffalo’s building boom and first-hand instruction from experienced developers and real estate professionals.
Dozens of students with backgrounds as diverse as software sales, community development, law and architecture have been drawn to the MS in Architecture program and the option to hone their studies on real estate development.
“The market is hot in Buffalo and in most metro areas across the country,” says Ernest Sternberg, a professor of urban and regional planning at UB and a key architect of the new MS in Architecture focus area. “Demand also stems from the market’s need for advanced training. Real estate development professionals must have hands on skills across a range of disciplines as well as a broad understanding of the industry’s relationship to the economy, new technologies, the environment and even sociocultural dynamics.”
Sinatra & Co. construction supervisor Tim Spitler (left) discusses his role on the Phoenix Brewery adaptive reuse project.
The tour of the Phoenix Brewery project on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus was part of a course in real estate development entrepreneurship taught by Sinatra, whose climb to the top of Buffalo’s development community after only six years in the business is a case study in itself.
Sinatra, founding president of Sinatra & Company Real Estate, says the timing couldn’t be better. “The renaissance in Buffalo is once-in-a-generation and real estate development and construction is leading the way. We need to foster interest on all levels, including proper education of future industry leaders.”
Student John Pastore, a former mortgage loan officer for a bank and an aspiring real estate investor, says the MS in Architecure program's wide array of practice-based courses was a key advantage over other programs he considered across the country.
“It’s very much about rolling up your sleeves and learning first-hand the stages of development, from how to creatively finance a project to getting the right team involved. We’ll walk out of here with the ability to develop a project.”
Pastore and his classmates will put their skills to the test for their final project for Sinatra – a development pitch for an 12,000-square-foot parking lot owned by Sinatra & Co. on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, by far the city’s fastest growing corridor. Taking into consideration economic and demographic projections, their development concepts must be supported by a feasibility study, zoning code review and financing model.
Given the complexity of even the smallest development projects, real estate courses in the MS in Architecture program are highly interdisciplinary. The context of the built environment is emphasized through the study of urban planning, architectural design, energy innovation, regional economic development, and housing and community development. Of equal focus are the essentials of finance, construction management, market analysis and real estate law.
This mix has worked for Dawn Aprile, a Rochester-based developer who is looking to take her company to the next level. “Although I came to the program with several years of experience, the courses immediately filled in gaps in my knowledge, increased my financial analysis capability and broadened my approach to the development process.”
Students learned about the complex role of the architect on a historic tax credit project from Jonathan Morris of Carmina Wood Morris. The Buffalo firm is lead architect for the Phoenix Brewery project.
Students are in constant contact with the region’s real estate development community. Institutions represented by its faculty include Uniland Development, R&P Oak Hill Development, Savarino Companies, Ciminelli Real Estate, the Buffalo Urban Redevelopment Corp., and CBRE, an international commercial real estate services firm. Weekly field visits have included ongoing developments across the region as well as zoning appeals court and preservation and planning board meetings. Students are also closely involved with the regional chapter of the Urban Land Institute, an international association for the real estate and land use disciplines.
Pastore says such network-building directly translates to career development. “We’re developing opportunities and meeting influential people in the industry.”
Amy Downing is a former executive of Buffalo’s Martin House Restoration Corp. Hoping to combine her interest in architecture, design and community development, she says the courses have the right balance of theory and practice. “It’s fascinating to see the connections across history, design, public and private motivations for a project, and how all this works together with the need to make it profitable.”
Such a holistic approach to real estate development is shared among faculty and students, she adds. “We want to build better communities.”
Sinatra is hoping for ideas along these lines when students submit their parking lot development concepts. Part of their assignment is to consider their project’s relationship to the historic Fruit Belt neighborhood, a community adjacent to the medical campus and under constant development pressure. Capturing the essence of opportunity – and entrepreneurship – in real estate development, Sinatra tells his students: “There is no one right answer to this project.”