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| Gene Ventura |
Chicago, IL-- Faris Lee
Investments has announced the addition of Gene
Ventura as senior managing director.
Ventura, an office and
retail developer and long-time Faris Lee client, brings three decades of
commercial real estate expertise to his new role.
His extensive experience
includes the development, leasing and disposition of four Chicago area office
complexes and seven Wisconsin retail centers.
As senior managing director, Ventura will lead client development,
increase transaction volume, and anchor Faris Lee’s new Chicago office.
Ventura joins Faris Lee
Investments from Kirkwood Partners, Ltd., a commercial development, management
and leasing company he founded in 1997 and continues to operate.
Between 2000 and 2008,
Kirkwood built 100,000 square feet of retail space on speculation in the
Kenosha, WI area. Each asset achieved 95%-100% occupancy prior to being sold
through Faris Lee’s Jeff Conover. Concurrent with founding Kirkwood, Ventura
was Vice President at Chicago-based Development Resources, Inc. (DRI), where he
worked with partners such as Oaktree Capital Management and Walton Street
Capital to build or redevelop 1.5 million square feet of office space in
Chicago and Skokie, IL.
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| Rick Chichester |
Two of those projects in
Chicago’s West Loop, Union Tower (1998) and Congress Center (2000), received
significant national attention for being high-risk, speculative development;
they opened at 95% and 85% leased, respectively.
Ventura started his career
with Goldie B. Wolfe & Co. as Vice President in the office brokerage
division. There, he represented over three million square feet of corporate
office transactions for clients such as Oracle, Lehman Brothers, Xerox and
Tenneco.
“Gene has been a valued
Faris Lee client for more than a decade and we are honored to have him join us,´
said Rick Chichester, president,
Faris Lee Investments.
“He brings unmatched
perspective on retail development and the highest level of transactional
expertise to the Faris Lee team, with whom there is an existing foundation of
trust and respect.
"We have long differentiated the Faris Lee brand through its
creative and collaborative approach to investment real estate. Gene will be an
influential part of further expanding on our brand and unique culture in the
Chicago and greater Midwestern markets,”
“I have a long standing
and unequivocally positive relationship with Faris Lee on the client side,” said
Ventura.. ”After the sale of my first retail project with Jeff Conover in 2007,
I was so impressed with the firm’s professionalism, unique team approach and
in-depth analysis, I didn’t consider another firm for my other retail assets.
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| Jeff Conover |
"After selling my retail portfolio I found that I truly miss the energy of the
transactional side of the business, and I look forward to bringing my
experience and relationships to the team, particularly in the expansion to the
Chicago market,”
Hailed as “trailblazing,”
Ventura’s developments received extensive national recognition from the press,
government agencies and professional associations.
In 1999, NAIOP awarded his
Union Tower project the Chicago NAIOP downtown office development of the year,
and his first retail development in Kenosha received a Congressional
Recognition Certificate from U.S.
Representative Paul Ryan.
Ventura holds a bachelor’s
degree in Economics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Faris Lee’s Chicago office
is located at 200 West Madison Ave., Suite 2100. Ventura can be reached by
email at gventura@farislee.com or by phone at (858) 353-7618.
For a complete copy of the company’s release, please
contact:
Darcie Giacchetto
Spaulding Thompson &
Associates
949.278.6224
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