GlobeSt.com spoke with Mack-Cali Realty Corp. CEO Mitchell E. Hersh at the RealShare New Jersey conference about the REIT's concerted push to build a multi-family platform, starting from zero and taking off like a rocket. After acquiring the Roseland residential development company last year, Mack-Cali proceeded to sell off non-core office assets and aggressively pursue apartment and mixed-use projects in New Jersey, Philadelphia, Boston and Washington, D.C.

Hersh tells Antoinette Martin in this conversation that Mack-Cali currently has about 2,100 more units in the pipeline and more than $700 million worth of projects “in process.”

Hersh addresses these points in the video:

• Mack-Cali's unique agreement to invest in a joint venture with Keystone Properties, trading its Philadelphia suburban office properties for rights to multi-family development and cash to finance that.
• Plans to redevelop several suburban office properties in the Garden State as mixed-use centers, including apartments.
• His expectation that the multi-family market will be the REIT's focus for decades.