CEO of SL Green Reality Corp. Marc Holliday, ’88, shared his knowledge on the real estate business with the Lehigh faculty and students from the College of Business and Economics on Wednesday afternoon in Zoellner Arts Center. Holliday recently donated $5 million to Lehigh’s real estate minor in an effort to expand the program and educate students with the real estate knowledge that he found so valuable as a Lehigh student.
Holliday is one of New York City’s top commercial real estate leaders and a high-achieving individual in the real estate world. Holliday has led SL Green to become New York City’s largest owner of commercial office real estate properties and the dominant landlord of Midtown Manhattan under his leadership. The company shows ownership interests in more than 120 assets in NYC’s Tribeca area, which totals 60 million square feet. The company continues to emphasize high-quality office properties while repositioning and upgrading their portfolio.
“We’re trying to create an image, not jut building-to-building,” Holliday said. “You have to compete on every level, not just the cheapest products.”
Holliday’s core values and strategies have helped drive the company’s earnings and growth in shareholder value.
Lehigh’s Integrated Real Estate at Lehigh (inre@l) program allows students to minor in Real Estate and combine it with any major. Though the program is fairly new at Lehigh (it began in 2009), it is growing quickly, and students pursuing it have majors ranging from finance and business to architecture and design.
As an architecture major at Lehigh, Sam Kupersmith ’16, said she developed an interest in real estate and now takes two classes within the program. She hopes to declare her real estate minor this year.
“As an architect, I think it’s really important to know how the business side works, apart from just designing buildings,” Kupersmith said. “When I’m hired by an architecture firm in the future, I want to be able to design my buildings in a way that will be appealing and sell in the real estate industry, too. I don’t want to make the mistake of many architects and build buildings that are way too expensive and aren’t practical and appealing to real estate companies.”
Many other Lehigh students are also interested in learning about the business side of their majors and find that doing so will be beneficial to them when they are working in their respective industries.
Holliday’s donation will allow highly accomplished real estate professionals to direct the program at Lehigh and will also give the university an opportunity to create a state-of-the-art industry program.
Shannon Smith, the director of the Small Business Development Center, helped organize Holliday’s presentation. “With the opening of the World Trade Center (in) downtown (Manhattan), the large-scale development underway at Hudson Yards in Midtown West, and new skyscrapers planned for the Grand Central area, the competition for Manhattan’s high-value office tenants has never been more intense,” she said.
During his presentation, Holliday also addressed his history with Reckson Associates Realty Corp. and how the company contributed to the success of SL Green. In 2007, SL Green bought Reckson Associates Reality Corp., which added over 9 million square feet to its portfolio. This allowed SL Green’s ownership to expand over Midtown and its assets to grow.
In addition to owning assets in Midtown, Manhattan, SL Green holds ownership interests in buildings in Brooklyn; Long Island; Westchester County, Connecticut; and New Jersey.
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