Who Is National Real Estate Advisors' Jeffrey Kanne?

The Los Angeles City Council did more than greenlight a towering addition to one of Downtown Los Angeles’ best-known commercial centers last week — it also put a spotlight on a faraway firm and the one-time Peace Corp volunteer who runs it.

The 15-member council approved National Real Estate Advisors’ residential highrise project at The Bloc shopping mall at 7th and Flower streets, clearing the way for its Washington, D.C.-based developer to add a 41-story, 710-foot-tall tower with 466 apartments above The Bloc’s existing parking structure. The residential component will join a fitness club that has partially filled a one-time Macy’s department store, various smaller retail shops, a 26-story Sheraton hotel, and 33 floors of office space that already comprise The Bloc.

The project will proceed under the guidance of the firm’s CEO, Jeffrey Kanne, who comes to the rough-and-tumble world of real estate development via the Peace Corps. The Iowa native didn’t go directly from do-gooder duty to development, though — he did some lumber trading, got his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Iowa, worked for the Washington, D.C. law firm of Arnold & Porter, and then cofounded Counts & Kanne.

Kanne, who didn’t respond to an inquiry for this piece, eventually landed with the parent of National Real Estate, which has about $4 billion in assets under management and is best known for its multifamily and office development. That was 38 years ago, and he has spanned various aspects of real estate development since.

In 2000, multi-billion-dollar pension fund National Electrical Benefit Fund formed an investment team to invest in real estate projects and Kanne ran its in-house real estate operations. In 2010, National Electrical Benefit Fund established National Real Estate Advisors as a subsidiary to manage real estate investments for pension funds and other institutional investors.

Under his leadership, National Real Estate Advisors formed a joint venture with Catalyst Healthcare Real Estate in November 2021 to focus on strategic capital investments in health care real estate. They paid $420 million to acquire and recapitalize two multistate health care portfolios by January 2022, Citybiz reported.

That deal “not only significantly scales our medical office portfolio, but furthers National’s geographic diversification,” Kanne said at the time.

National Real Estate, which is co-developing the 2,000-apartment mixed-use project The Stacks in Washington, D.C., has also made significant investments in the data center space. Through a joint venture with Sabey Corporation, Sabey Data Centers has a portfolio of more than 4 million square feet of efficient multitenant data centers. The firm has raised $1.2 billion to invest in data centers, the Washington Business Journal said.

The Bloc

The project in Downtown Los Angeles brings the development firmly back to the multifamily sector in a big and splashy way. The 41-story residential tower will be among the tallest buildings on the city’s skyline at 710 feet, a status made possible because it starts atop an existing parking structure. The development’s 466 apartments would include a mix of studio, one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments. Also on tape is a sculpted glass rooftop with an open-air amenity deck. A swimming pool, fitness center and lawn are planned.

California-based The Ratkovich Company acquired the 2.4-million-square-foot site that was then called Macy’s Plaza in 2013 for $241 million, according to the Los Angeles Times, and commenced plans for a $180 million transformation. Five years later, Ratkovich sold its interest to National Real Estate, its financial partner.

At the time, Kanne told the Times: “We’re hoping to build a residential tower on top of the parking garage. Maybe 40 stories.”

The recent approval from the City Council means he’s positioned to make good on that hope — although the developer will put in some some extras for the city

National Real Estate will make a nearly $16.8 million public benefits payment for a transfer of development rights from the Los Angeles Convention Center, with funds allocated for unspecified public amenities, affordable housing, and street lighting repair.