Peter Brosens of Stolar Capital Building | Chatham on Main in Chatham | What is Workforce Housing
Courtesy of Stolar Capital
What is Workforce Housing
Between the global financial crisis, tanking housing production, and rapid inflation, housing affordability for middle income workers has become increasingly out-of-reach. Workforce housing, a type of unregulated affordable housing, addresses the limitations that professionals like teachers, healthcare providers, and retail clerks are facing when it comes to owning a home.
In this episode, I unpack the concept of workforce housing and revisit a conversation with Peter Brosens, founder of Stolar Capital, where we cover the details of Chatham on Main, his firm’s garden-style, multifamily complex in Chatham, New Jersey.
Located in an affluent town 45 minutes from Manhattan, Chatham on Main is a 118-unit property featuring one- and two-bedroom floor plans. The extensive renovations include roofing, shutters, lighting, and landscaping.
Stolar Capital specializes in buying mixed-use or multifamily properties and repositioning them through asset management. Peter shares the challenges he faced starting out, which ultimately led him to specialize in this area. He also walks us through approval processes, why he prefers buying and fixing existing property, and the importance of relationships in real estate.
“The global financial crisis and the pandemic exacerbated the issue of housing affordability because of rapid inflation combined with tanking housing production across the nation. The percentage of middle income workers who could afford market rate housing has declined, creating the need for unregulated affordable housing like workforce housing.”
Courtesy of Stolar Capital
About Peter Brosens
Peter Brosens is the founder of Stolar Capital, a real estate investment firm with offices in Hoboken and in Philadelphia. The firm's focus since 2012 has been on developing large mixed-use projects in transit-oriented downtown locations in New Jersey. In addition, he has raised a 10 million specialty financing fund to focus on investment in repositioning multi-family residential assets across the country. Prior to starting at Stolar Capital, Peter worked at the JBG companies in Washington, DC. He is a Columbia University alum.
Courtesy of Stolar Capital
Episode Timestamps
2:16 – What is workforce housing?
5:36 – Who are the members of Stolar Capital?
7:34 – Talk to us about the city of Chatham, and more specifically, the Chatham on Main site.
11:35 – How did you find this deal and what was the process of closing it like?
14:15 – Walk listeners through what they would see if they were going from the train station downtown to this site. What would they be seeing? What would that experience be like?
16:04 – I want to dig into that first iteration of Stolar Capital that you mentioned, which were single-family homes in Central to Northern New Jersey. What went well, and perhaps more interestingly, what did not go well?
23:01 – You said it took you five years to try to get through approvals. For listeners that don't know what happens over those five years, what is happening?
29:36 – You mentioned preferred equity and mezzanine capital stack. Could you explain what those terms mean in terms of the financing of the deal?
36:49 – What do you see the next five years of your business being?
Additional Resources
Connect with Peter Brosens:
Stolar Capital
LinkedIn (Peter Brosens)
LinkedIn (Stolar Capital)
Courtesy of Stolar Capital
About your host:
Atif Qadir is the Founder & CEO of Commonplace, a technology company making it easy for commercial real estate professionals to find and use the $100B of real estate incentives given out every year in the US.
His work has been covered by Technology Review, The Real Deal, Commercial Observer, and Propmodo. He’s also a frequent speaker on the future of buildings and cities on popular industry podcasts and at conferences, including this past year at the Commercial Observer National DEI Conference, Yale AREA Conference, Columbia Real Estate Symposium, Open Data Week NYC and Austin Design Week.
About Commonplace
Commonplace is a founding sponsor of American Building. It is a 100% minority-owned, real estate technology company founded in 2020 to make financing social impact development projects across the US easier. It is funded by venture capital investors Hometeam Ventures, Park West Asset Management, New York Ventures and Shadow Ventures.
About Michael Graves
The world-famous design firm Michael Graves is also a founding sponsor of American Building. Its namesake, the iconoclastic designer Michael Graves, FAIA was a fierce advocate for people-centric design. His work defines a generation of American architecture and includes the Portland Building, the Humana Building and the Denver Public Library. The 1st season of American Building was filmed live at The Warehouse, his historic home in Princeton, New Jersey:
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