NEW YORK CITY-DLC Management Corp. is expanding its operations by forming a development division. The new DLC Development will be headed by Alfred Callegari, former regional director of real estate for the Greater New York area for CVS Pharmacy.

The expansion has been a long time in coming, according to DLC Management president Adam Ifshin. The time seemed appropriate especially since, "We have more capital that we can place in just acquisitions," he tells GlobeSt.com. While the development concept had been an idea for some time, Ifshin says everything fell into place when the company hired Callegari to head the team. "He is someone who knew how to get through deals from beginning to end and we said hey if we can match that up with all our expertise, capital and relationship," it's going to work.

The new development team will center its attention on ground-up retail projects and stand-alone stores. Ifshin says they currently have six to eight sites they are actively pursuing and hope to announce the at least half the deals in the next 12 months. Initially DLC Development will focus mostly around the New York metro area, then expand into Washington, DC; Boston; and Philadelphia, Ifshin says.

Last week, DLC Management purchased nine retail properties totaling more than 1.1 million sf. The properties, as reported by GlobeSt.com, are located in Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Tennessee.