Stephen Green, chairman and founder of
SL Green Realty Corp., has been named
Real Estate Finance & Investment's inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award.
REFI has also named
Gramercy Capital Corp. as the recipient of its first Outstanding Contributor Award. The presentations will be made along with other awards at a dinner on June 13
th at Jumeirah Essex House in New York. Green founded SL Green Real Estate in 1980 and has since been involved in the acquisition of more than 30 New York office building. His clients have included
Aldrich Eastman & Waltch,
Bank of New York,
CalPERS,
Dai-lchi Kangyo Bank and
Credit Suisse. Green is a governor of the
Real Estate Board of New York and an at-large member of the executive committee of the board of governors of the REBNY. He is also the co-chair of the
Real Estate Tax Fairness Coalition.
Since the New York-based real estate investment trust's initial public offering in 1997, Green has worked to reposition his company's portfolio from a concentration in New York's downtown area to high-quality trophies in midtown. It also acquired pre-war Class B buildings and transformed them into Class A space.
SL Green was the top-performing office REIT in the U.S. in 2005, producing a total return of 30.5% for shareholders. The REIT completed more than $1.3 billion of acquisitions last year, including One Madison Ave. and a $625 million recapitalization of 1515 Broadway in Times Square, which it acquired for less than $500 million three years ago. SL Green has also launched a retail platform with the acquisition of the Howard Johnson site in Times Square and other projects.
