Jeff T. Blau
Jeff T. Blau is CEO and a partner of Related Companies. For the past 25 years, he has been responsible for directing and overseeing new developments worth more than $20 billion in virtually every sector of the real estate industry, including New York City’s Time Warner Center, where Global Connect will take place on April 7 at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and where Blau will be speaking.
Blau has led the sprawling real estate company since 2012 and began with Related as a 20-year-old intern when he met the company’s founder Stephen Ross at a University of Michigan conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Related’s signature development, Time Warner Center, consists of two 750-foot twin towers bridged by a multi-story atrium containing upscale retail shops. The 15-year old property had the highest-listed market value in New York City, $1.1 billion, in 2006.
Originally constructed as the AOL Time Warner Center, the building encircles the western side of Columbus Circle and straddles the border between Midtown and the Upper West Side.
The total floor area of 2.8 million square feet is divided between offices (notably the offices of Time Warner Inc. and an R&D Center for VMware), residential condominiums, and the Mandarin Oriental, New York hotel. The Shops at Columbus Circle is an upscale shopping mall located in a curving arcade at the base of the building, with a large Whole Foods Market grocery store in the basement.
With projects around the country, Related’s portfolio is wildly diverse, including the massive Hudson Yards project and a smaller 84-unit new luxury rental project at 456 Washington St. downtown New York City, with rents reaching up to $50,000 a month with a library and yoga and Pilates studios.
Earlier this year, Related began work on MiMA, a 1.2 million-square-foot, mixed-use development on 42nd Street in Manhattan. Blau is also developing the massive 26-acre Hudson Yards, the largest development site remaining in Manhattan, with plans for up to four corporate headquarters, a retail complex, a hotel, a public school and nine residential buildings. A controversial development, the project’s massive footprint is radically altering the area between the Chelsea neighborhood and Times Square on the West side of New York.
Forty-seven-year-old Blau serves on the Board of Directors of Equinox Holdings, Inc., the Central Park Conservancy, the New York City Partnership and Partnership Fund for New York City, Real Estate Roundtable, the Housing Advisory Board of Robin Hood and The Wharton Graduate Executive Board. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of The Mount Sinai Medical Center, Urban Land Institute, Association for a Better New York (ABNY) and is a board member of the Union Square Partnership.
A New York native, Blau has received numerous honors for his business, civic and philanthropic activities and most recently he was named to Crain’s New York’s New Influentials list of 25 leaders reshaping New York. Mr. Blau is also a member of the Visiting Committee at the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business.
A University of Michigan graduate, he received his MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.