Shaul Kuba

Co-Founder, Principal, CIM Group

Kuba is credited with remaking West Adams into one of Los Angeles’ few upscale residential neighborhoods south of the 10 Freeway. The transformation that drew investment and, at the time, criticism over gentrification.

Kuba founded CIM in 1994 with Richard Ressler and high school and Israeli army buddy Avi Shemesh after first founding Dekel Development. He oversees development, redevelopment and repositioning of all of CIM’s real estate assets. The company, which owns the Lot at Formosa in West Hollywood and Two California Plaza in Bunker Hill, has relationships with more than 200 institutional investors worldwide, including public and corporate pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, global insurance companies and foundations. 

Before West Adams, Kuba led the revival of Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade in the 1990s, a district now facing another reset in the wake of the pandemic.

Community opposition has shaped CIM’s trajectory. In 2020, activists forced the firm out of a deal to redevelop Crenshaw Plaza, where CIM had agreed to pay more than $100 million for the shopping center at Crenshaw and Martin Luther King Jr. boulevards. The plan to convert the site into a mixed-use complex drew resistance from residents concerned about displacement.