NEW YORK CITY-Acknowledging the way the company has been doing business for some time, Simon Development Group is changing its name to Simon Baron Development. The company has also promoted principal Matthew Baron to president of the firm that now also will bear his name.
Since joining the firm in 2006, Baron has grown the firm alongside Jonathan Simon, the company's founder, who will retain the title of CEO. Baron now will share equal responsibilities in running SBD.
“This is recognition of the fact that we're running the firm together now,” Baron tells GlobeSt.com. “We've been partners for seven or eight years and [this partnership] has evolved as we've grown and the company has grown.”
He adds, “Jonathan started the business 20 years ago and created the platform that led to our success.” The firm is developing a growing number of residential and commercial projects that include 11-13 E. 31st St., a 250-room hotel in Midtown and 12 E. 88th St., a 13-story, prewar residential building off Fifth Ave. the firm is acquiring this month for $105 million.
Says Simon, “We look forward to growing the company and to many more years of success. Our goals are to find opportunities and investments for ourselves and our partners.”
Previously Baron served as VP at Pergolis Swartz Associates, where he was involved in both sourcing and structuring debt and equity for real estate transactions. Baron raised capital for transitional lending institutions, as well as private funds. He also worked with former President Bill Clinton, for whom he was a member of the consulting team for the Harlem Small Business Initiative. He worked on editing Clinton's autobiography, “My Life.”
The company, which works both on new and redeveloped properties, controls over $1 billion of real estate spanning 13 buildings with over 1,000 units of residential, hotel, retail and industrial space in various stages of completion. These include rental buildings such as Tower 31 at 9 W. 31st St. and 393 W. End Ave. at 79th street.
Recent project acquisitions have included a 400,000-square-foot site and a 220,000-square-foot site—both in Long Island City—where residential rental units will be built; 166 W. 75th St., a 200-unit building on the Upper West Side being converted to rentals and 393 West End Ave., a 113-unit pre-war building being converted to rentals.
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Rayna Katz
Rayna Katz is a seasoned business journalist whose extensive experience includes coverage of the lodging sector, travel and the culinary space. She was most recently content director for a business-to-business publisher, overseeing four publications. While at Meeting News, a travel trade publication, she received a Best Reporting award for a story on meeting cancellations in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
