Town Residential named Corcoran Sunshine and Extell Development alumnus Elaine Diratz as managing director of new development, a position she will share with Shlomi Reuveni.
Diratz worked at Corcoran Sunshine for 10 years before hopping to Extell last year as senior vice president, where she worked on recruiting on-site sales staff for the company’s portfolio of projects including One57, 70 Charlton, One Manhattan Square, and the Kent on East 95th Street. She also worked on unit pricing, forecasting and negotiating transactions.
Reuveni joined Town in April 2014 from Brown Harris Stevens.
“The division is growing very nicely and we have our hands full,” Town CEO Andrew Heiberger said of Diratz’s hire. “There are a whole bunch of other things in the hopper. Her arrival at Town comes at the perfect time.”
Town’s upcoming projects include RGS Holdings’ 126-unit condo at 300 West 122nd Street and a 37-story tower at Triangle Assets’ 303 East 44th Street.
The move to bulk out its new development offerings comes just months after Heiberger bought equity partner Joseph Sitt out of his 50 percent stake in the company. Sitt, who heads Thor Equities, was seen by the industry as central to Town’s new development strategy and his projects, Including 212 Fifth Avenue, were among its largest.
But Heiberger argued the company may actually be in a better position to court new projects now, since its affiliation with Sitt may have put off developers who consider Thor competition.
“Joe is a client currently on two projects, and I think we might do business again,” he said. “But, this way, we’re purely independent. I can’t imagine that developers always want their competition marketing their properties.”
At Corcoran Sunshine, Diratz worked on projects such as 15 Hudson Yards, Chelsea Modern, 110 Central Park South, 10 West End Avenue and the W Downtown Hotel Residences. She was previously at the Trump Corporation, where she built the in-house new development marketing and sales division for Trump World Tower, Trump Park Avenue and the rental to condominium conversion of Trump Parc East at 100 Central Park South.