Spot On Ventures, LLC is a real estate firm specializing in hotel and mixed-use investment and development. The firm was founded and is led by Robin Brown who, with over forty years of experience in the hospitality and real estate industry, has acquired a distinctive skill set for urban, mixed-use development, hotel operations management, asset management, and hospitality-oriented design/branding.

Throughout its investment portfolio, Spot On puts the customer first, actively engages local communities, and caters its projects to the individual styles, themes, and nuances of surrounding neighborhoods, striving to bring people together in unique, hospitable and diverse settings.

As a hotel and mixed-use investor, developer and operator, Mr. Brown has worked independently and with many prominent real estate companies including Highgate Holdings, the Rockpoint Group, Samuels & Associates, and The Davis Companies. Mr. Brown created the concept for what became the Mandarin Oriental Boston in the Back Bay of Boston and was a co-developer of the project from its conception to its opening, a period of 12 years. The Mandarin Oriental was developed from the ground up at a cost of more than $350 million. Mr. Brown was involved with full design, permitting and approvals, securing the financing, construction oversight, retail leasing, apartment leasing, and customized condominium sales (responsible to the partnership and the bank and solely responsible for over $200 million in condominium sales). The property was sold in the Fall of 2008. Mr. Brown was then involved with the acquisition of the Boston Park Plaza. He partnered with Highgate Holdings and the Rockpoint Group to acquire, operationally improve, transform the design, rebrand the 80-year-old hotel and sell the property. Mr. Brown is currently an investor in multiple, highly innovative hotel projects in the Boston/Greater Boston Area. Mr. Brown launched the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York City’s Times Square, developed the concept and provides management for The Verb Hotel in the Fenway District of Boston, supports asset management, in partnership with The Davis Companies, of the Hilton Boston/Woburn in Woburn, Massachusetts, co-developed the renovation, in partnership with The Davis Companies, and provides asset management for the Studio Allston Hotel in the Allston neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts and is currently co-developing, in partnership with The Davis Companies, the Omni Boston Seaport Hotel in the Seaport District of Boston, Massachusetts, expected to open in March 2021.

Prior to launching Spot On Ventures, Mr. Brown was with the Four Seasons Hotels for 20 years. As General Manager of the Four Seasons Hotel Boston for 13 years, the hotel received numerous accolades including the AAA Five Diamond Award, Mobil Five Star award, Institutional Investor magazine's Top 10 Hotels in the World, Number One Hotel in Boston on Zagat, and Number One Service in the World by Conde Nast readers' poll. The hotel restaurant, Aujourd'hui, also received awards such as the AAA Five Diamond Award, Number One Restaurant in Boston on Zagat, and maintained its position as one of the most profitable F&B operations in the Four Seasons chain for over a decade. The Four Seasons Boston was the only property in New England to receive AAA Five Diamond awards for both the hotel and restaurant. Prior to his position in Boston, Mr. Brown oversaw operations for two large mixed-use Four Seasons properties in Vancouver and Edmonton, Canada. Mr. Brown then spent time at the Four Seasons Georgetown in Washington, DC, the Number One Hotel in Institutional Investor magazine and consistently considered one of the best hotels in the world. As Resident Manager at the Washington, DC Four Seasons, Mr. Brown analyzed the concept of converting an adjacent, privately owned office building into guest rooms, while simultaneously reducing the number of keys in the existing structure to create a bigger, more deluxe hotel overall. This repositioning was ultimately undertaken, increasing the value tremendously.

After hotel school, Mr. Brown began his hotel career as an executive at Starwood Hotels, where he oversaw the management and physical expansion and repositioning of the Westin Edmonton (416 keys,

24,000 SF meeting space) and the Westin Calgary (525 keys, 26,000 SF meeting space). Mr. Brown was involved in overseeing the expansion of the hotels, including additional guest rooms and meeting space.

Mr. Brown’s reputation as an outstanding hotelier is matched by his commitment to his community. He has served on numerous boards and advisory groups. Upon Mr. Brown’s retirement from the Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, he launched a foundation dedicated to support Alzheimer research in memory of his father, Jim Brown. Mr. Brown has served as a Director of The Boston Public Library Foundation, a Trustee for Life of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and was the Vice Chairman of The Back Bay Association for over ten years. Previously, Mr. Brown served as a Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Wang Center for the Performing Arts, Director of The Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, an Overseer of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and on the Board of Directors of the Business Leadership Association of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Develops, leases and/or manages 10 food halls & public markets with more than 175 active vendors manages a full-service real estate development, brokerage & operations firm with a unique focus on large-scale retail placemaking and experiential real estate.

Manages a brokerage team of five agents, leasing 250K square feet of retail space per year, representing both landlords & tenants, as well as more than 55 food hall / public market stalls per year Acts as outsourced real estate department for numerous retail clients (Site Selection, Design Management, Construction Management, Permitting, Procurement).

David Manfredi works with clients across the country on a diverse portfolio of planning and design projects. Deeply committed to the belief that the quality of our environment directly influences the quality of our lives, he effectively advocates for building and protecting vital, sustainable, durable urban places. At every scale, in every context, David’s mission is to create common ground that brings people and communities together. He reinvents tired urban precincts into 21st-century mixed-use environments, the edges of universities from barriers into connective seams with adjacent neighborhoods, underutilized urban areas into diverse innovation districts that support the collaborative imperatives of today’s science and technology, and obsolete manufacturing buildings into repurposed hubs of living and working that reinvigorate the urban core. From The Grove in Los Angeles, to Boston’s revitalized Fenway neighborhood, to New Balance’s health and performance district at Boston Landing, and The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, David’s projects are inventive, inclusive and sustainable. A compelling, sought-after speaker and thought-leader and one of Boston Magazine’s Most Influential People in 2018, David presents to business, civic, and professional organizations throughout the country about the value that mindful design brings to the quality of everyday life.

David is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and an active member of the Boston Preservation Alliance, International Council of Shopping Centers, NAIOP, and Urban Land Institute (ULI). He serves on the Boston Civic Design Commission, Northeastern University School of Architecture Advisory Council, the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture Advisory Council, and the ULI Boston Advisory Board. David is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame with Bachelor degrees in both English and Architecture, and the University of Chicago, where he received a Master of Arts.

Whitney Gallivan joined Boston Realty Advisors in 2015 as a Managing Director and Partner of the Retail Division. With over 13 years of experience in retail leasing, development, and investment sales, Whitney brings an extensive and unique skill set to the platform.

Whitney has been at the forefront of retail evolution in Boston with recent success as the exclusive, on-site leasing consultant for the redevelopment of The Shops at Prudential Center, the largest mixed-use real estate complex in New England. Gallivan successfully secured high-profile tenants including, but not limited to, Under Armour, Tesla, Madewell, Shinola and Warby Parker.

Gallivan was then retained by Jamestown Properties, one of the most innovative retail developers in the US, as the exclusive retail consultant for the Newbury Collection: 28 mixed-use properties encompassing over 220,000 square feet of street-level retail in Boston’s Back Bay.

Greg Karczewski is the President of Union Square Station Associates (US2) and has over 25 years of experience in the real estate industry as a developer, consultant and educator. He is passionate about urban real estate investment and development and its crucial role in the creation of great cities. US2 is the master developer partnered with the City of Somerville on the creation of a 2.4-million-square-foot, mixed-use employment center at the future Union Square MBTA station in Union Square. Greg earned an MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management and a BS in Civil Engineering from the University of Notre Dame.

Dan Rivera came to MassDevelopment after serving seven years as Mayor of the City of Lawrence, Mass. During his time as Mayor, the city saw significant commercial development, record new units of housing, and tens of millions of dollars invested in economic development planning and projects. Dan’s focus on economic and community development as Mayor included investments in housing, job creation, downtown redevelopment, transit-oriented development and equity, infrastructure, brownfields redevelopment, placemaking, and quality-of-life improvements, and establishing professional, transparent, modern, and streamlined permitting and licensing processes.

Dan was an invaluable member of the Baker-Polito Administration’s Reopening Advisory Board, bringing the municipal viewpoint to the group tasked with developing the Commonwealth’s strategy to reopen the economy during COVID-19, and the COVID-19 Vaccine Advisory Group. In 2017, Governor Baker tapped Rivera to serve on the newly established Latino Advisory Commission charged with addressing concerns of the Massachusetts Latino community and promoting economic prosperity and well-being.

Prior to his two terms as Mayor of Lawrence, Dan held various positions in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. Dan is a veteran of the U.S. Army, where he served in the first Gulf War, Desert Shield/Desert Storm, and a graduate of the UMass Amherst and Suffolk University’s Sawyer School of Management, where he earned his MBA. Dan lives in Lawrence with his wife, Paula, and their children, Daniel and Charlotte.

John Rosenthal is the President of Meredith Management. He is a successful real estate developer and manager in Massachusetts who has distinguished himself in his ability to balance corporate and individual responsibility. In addition to owning a large portfolio of residential and commercial properties, he is also developing the Fenway Center mixed-use project on land and air rights over the MassTurnpike next to Fenway Park. Construction of Fenway Center will commence in late 2015 and will include 1,300,000 sf of housing, retail, office, parking and a new State funded Yawkey Commuter Rail Station. This smart-growth transit and renewable energy oriented development will also incorporate a large solar photo voltaic power plant to power Yawkey Station, making it the first”zero net energy” commuter rail station in the Commonwealth. The full service Yawkey Station improvement project was completed in March 2014.

Meredith Management developed the first mixed income apartment complex financed by the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency in 1969 and has developed and managed over 5,000 residential units and 5 million square of commercial property. Meredith currently employs 125 real estate professionals and manages property throughout Massachusetts. In 2009 Meredith created an an affiliate, Here Comes the Sun, LLC which has developed 9 commercial solar photovoltaic power plants in Massachusetts using Federal and State Renewable Energy Tax Credits, and more solar plants are being planned.

John is also very active in community based environmental and renewable energy issues as well as social and economic justice. He has organized and advocated extensively in support of safe and renewable energy and against nuclear power. He has also founded founded several effective nonprofit organizations. In 1987 John started the Friends of Boston’s Homeless (www.fobh.org). The Friends is a partnership with the City of Boston, has raised over $20,000,000, serves 800 people every night and helps transition more than 400 formerly homeless men and women in Boston beyond shelter with housing and full-time jobs each year.

In June 2015, John co-founded the Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative ( www.paariusa.org ) to support the innovative Gloucester Police Angel program and help other police departments around the Commonwealth and Nation address the deadly epidemic and desease of opioid addiction. Within seven months of it’s founding the Gloucester Angel Program placed over 450 people into treat, over 300 treatment centers have partnered offering scholarship beds and over 110 police departments across the Country have replicated all or parts of the Angel program, placing another 1,000 into treatment.

Hayley Suminski, Vice President and Senior Multifamily Mortgage Banker with KeyBank Real Estate Capital. With over 20 years of well-rounded commercial real estate experience on both the private equity and debt sides of the business, Ms. Suminski draws on a variety of loan programs including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, CMBS, life company, bridge and balance sheet executions to finance properties in the Northeast, as well as, nationally.

Prior to KeyBank, Ms. Suminski led the Boston office for Hunt Mortgage Group where she originated multifamily financing nationally. She was also previously part of the Deutsche Bank Berkshire Mortgage platform where she oversaw and managed a portfolio totaling $6.4 billion of loans nationwide. Before that she was a Vice President at TriSail Capital Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. While at TriSail Capital, Ms. Suminski underwrote, structured and negotiated deal terms to originate more than $120 million in new mezzanine and participating equity loans. In addition, she managed a portfolio of $80 million of mezzanine and participating equity debt structures subordinated to $900 million of senior debt across all property types. Prior to TriSail, Ms. Suminski worked as an Acquisition Analyst at GID Investment Advisers and was responsible for project managing and financially modeling all multifamily development deals. Ms. Suminski began her career in commercial real estate at Berkshire Property Advisors where she was a financial analyst in the acquisition and disposition groups.

Ms. Suminski graduated Cum Laude with a BA in economics and a minor in finance from Simmons College.

Joshua Lee Smith is a land use and real estate lawyer focusing on complex commercial real estate matters involving permitting, acquisitions, leasing, environmental compliance and financing. His clients primarily consist of developers, public and private corporations, public utility companies, colleges and universities and lending institutions. He works on a variety of matters involving urban and suburban developments and retail, office, public utility, industrial, education and hotel projects. Among Josh's notable projects is the acquisition, development and financing of the former Worcester County Courthouse property involving a $53 million development of 117 residential units.

Lisa Nickerson, winner of the 2016 PRISM Award for Marketing Professional of the Year, is the true definition of an entrepreneurial businesswoman. Having earned The Nashua Telegraph’s 91 Progress’ Entrepreneur of the Year at 17 years old, Lisa is now the CEO and founder of Nickerson PR, an award-winning full-service communications agency that offers an integrated blend of public relations, social media, digital content, creative services, and events expertise. In June of 2018, Lisa was featured on Chronicle as Greater Boston’s Real Estate Expert.

A multiple-industry award winner, Lisa is a well-respected, sought-after speaker and moderator, and a devotee of professional and community service. She is an active member of ULI | New England’s Advisory Board, ULI Women Leadership Institute Co-Chair and Communications Chair, American Marketing Association, Board Member & VP of Sponsorship, Boston Women in Media & Entertainment Board Member, former SIOR New England Board Member & Communications Chair, and a member of NAIOP and CREW.

Lisa received her Bachelor of Science degree from Boston College in Marketing and Finance. She maintains her Massachusetts Real Estate License and is currently completing her Master of Business Administration at Babson College.

Lisa received her Real Estate Certificate from Boston University. She resides in Wayland, MA, and is a proud mother of three outstanding teenagers – her two sons are highly decorated Eagle Scouts and her daughter is a competitive gymnast.

Mr. Chase serves as our Senior Vice President of Acquisitions. Mr. Chase served as Managing Director for STAG Capital Partners, LLC from 2003 to 2011, where he was responsible for managing an acquisition team in the sourcing, underwriting, negotiating and closing of deals with a territory of approximately half the country. Mr. Chase was the Vice President of Acquisitions at Paradigm Properties, where he was responsible for originating, underwriting, analyzing and closing new investments from March 1999 to June 2002. He also was a broker in the Boston office of Grubb & Ellis focusing primarily on investment sales from June 1996 to February 1999. Mr. Chase received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Vermont.

Colleen Wheeler is the East Coast Head of Industrial Asset Management with 10 years of experience in the real estate industry. She is directly responsible for driving growth in AEW’s $12.9 billion industrial portfolio across 79 million square feet. She holds a B.S. from Babson College and a Real Estate Finance & Development Certificate from MIT Center for Real Estate.

Lisa Strope is a Partner with TA Realty and leads the research efforts for the firm. In this role, she works closely with senior leadership to craft the strategic house view, drive thought leadership initiatives and monitor domestic and international capital markets. She also partners with the firm’s investment and portfolio management teams to advance the firm’s analysis and forecasting across property types and regions. 

She has over 25 years of experience in real estate research, investment, and development. Prior to joining TA Realty in 2020, she spent six years at JLL. Her responsibilities included oversight of the national research platform for life sciences, healthcare and seniors housing and the New England research team. Prior to JLL, she served as a Teaching Fellow at Harvard Business School where she focused on the study of investment trends in real estate.

She holds a B.A. from Cornell University and an M.B.A. from the Stern School of Business at New York University. She is a former Board Member, CREW Boston, and an Adjunct Real Estate Faculty at Babson College.

Chris Skeffington joined the CBRE Capital Markets team in 2018 and serves as Executive Vice President. The team provides a broad range of services including investment sales, equity placement, structured financing and strategic advisory work. Chris has transacted more than $2 billion in total sales and structured finance transactions of office, industrial and life sciences properties.

Prior to joining CBRE Boston Consulting Group, Chris was a Partner on Transwestern | RBJ’s Capital Markets team, a company he served at for eight years.

Chris is a member of the Real Estate Finance Association. He volunteers with many youth initiatives, including the Woburn Boys’ and Girls’ Club and Woburn Youth Basketball. Prior to his commercial real estate career, Chris was a Senior Analyst at Anglo Irish Bank Corporation, working in the Commercial Real Estate Lending division. He performed valuation analyses, underwrote and restructured both new and existing loans, and was responsible for managing a loan portfolio of over $1B in aggregate.