Susan De Franca
Prudential Douglas Elliman has lured a top marketing executive at Related to lead an expanded development team, the company announced yesterday. According to the Wall Street Journal, luxury apartment sales executive Susan de Franca will take over as president of Prudential Douglas Elliman Developments in September, finally filling the position previously occupied by Andrew Gerringer, who departed in April 2010 to join the Marketing Directors.
De Franca was hired by Related as it was in discussions for the residential towers at the Time Warner Center a decade ago. Since then, she’s forged marketing campaigns for more that $3 billion in luxury developments in New York, Boston and Los Angeles, including the Superior Ink project in the West Village, where De Franca nabbed a free pad last year.
“There is plenty of new development to support the great brokerage companies that are out there,” De Franca said of her choice to move to a brokerage model. “[It’s] a time for new growth in real estate.”
Possibilities for new development remain fragmentary, the Journal said, with few building permits being issued and stalled projects coming back from the brink.
Jonathan Miller, appraiser and president of Miller Samuel, said that without proper financing, new projects are struggling to get off the ground. “You are seeing some of the wheels turn, but you are not seeing any results yet,” he said.
But Howard Lorber, chairman of Elliman, said that things were shifting. “We have a lot of things on our plate, a ton of new projects coming on line,” he said.
Elliman lost control of sales at number of high-profile development projects in the last few years, including Manhattan House and the Apthorp. Lorber said they picked up a host of others including 100 Eleventh Avenue and Tribeca Summit. [WSJ]