New Jersey State of the Market

As Principal and Vice President of Investment at Advance Realty, Alex Cocoziello focuses on risk management, capital allocation, and investment strategy helping to ensure seamless execution of the firm’s core, value-added and opportunistic real estate transactions. Prior to joining Advance, Alex worked as a trader and market-maker for Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Global Markets Division on the Event-Driven Equity Team. In this role, Alex specialized in the trading of equity securities focusing on risk arbitrage of corporate mergers and acquisitions, distressed equity, and post-reorganizational equity. His responsibilities included managing firm capital in risk situations, providing fundamental and technical market analysis, daily trading commentary, and corporate earnings analysis to institutional clients such as asset managers, pension funds, mutual funds, and hedge funds. Alex holds a BS in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University, and an MS in Real Estate with a concentration in finance and investment from New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate.

Mr. Wolfe is the Managing Partner in the Property Tax Department at Skoloff & Wolfe, PC, where he focuses his practice on representing taxpayers in significant real estate tax appeals and property tax related matters. He has extensive experience in all types of property tax appeals, including hotel, multi-family, retail, office, and industrial properties. Mr. Wolfe frequently counsels clients on the property tax implications of the development, acquisition, and disposition of significant assets. He also counsels clients with respect to property tax exemptions and PILOT agreements. Mr. Wolfe serves on the Board of the National Association of Property Tax Attorneys (NAPTA) and as the Co-Chair of the Real Property Tax Practice Committee of the New Jersey State Bar Association. Mr. Wolfe has been featured or quoted in a wide variety of local and national publications, including Forbes.com, GlobeSt.com, Marketwatch.com, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Law.com, Law360.com, The New York Law Journal, and Commerce Magazine. Mr. Wolfe has a track record of obtaining significant assessment reductions on behalf of his clients. Examples of those assessment reductions include: • Reduced hotel assessment from $188 million to $131million; • Reduced multi-family assessment from $116 million to $67 million; • Reduced office assessment from $115.5 million to $90million; • Reduced supermarket anchored center from $66.9 million to $46 million; • Reduced nursing home assessment from $36 million to $10.1million; • Reduced big box retail assessment from $21.3 million to $13.4 million; • Reduced office assessment from $27.8 million to $6.5million. Mr. Wolfe began his career as an associate at the law firm of Davis Polk and Wardwell in New York. While at Davis Polk, he focused his practice on regulatory investigations, securities litigation and banking disputes. Mr. Wolfe is a member of the American Bar Association House of Delegates and is the Co-Chair of the ABA’s Diversity & Inclusion 360 Presidential Commission. As a young lawyer, Mr. Wolfe served as the Chair of the ABA Young Lawyers Division, the ABA’s largest entity with more than 130,000 members. Mr. Wolfe received his J.D. from New York University School of Law, and graduated from Cornell University with distinction in all subjects.

Jose is a senior managing director and co-office head in the New Jersey office of JLL Capital Markets, Americas. He joins JLL as part of the HFF acquisition and is a member of the firm’s leadership committee. Jose specializes in investment advisory throughout New Jersey, New York and Connecticut and also oversees the day-to-day operations of the firm’s New Jersey office. During the course of his more than 25-year commercial real estate career, he’s been involved in more than $62 billion of office, industrial, retail, multifamily and land sales. Jose started at HFF in March 2010. Before that, he was the executive director of Cushman & Wakefield’s New York area investment sales group where he spent more than 17 years. He began his real estate career as a real estate analyst at PaineWebber, UBS, Inc.

Russell Tepper serves as Mill Creek Residential’s Senior Managing Director for development activities in the Northeast region including New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. His duties include leading this regional division of Mill Creek for both ground-up and adaptive reuse developments, while furthering its objective to create tailored residential communities that cater to surrounding neighborhoods’ needs. Prior to joining Mill Creek in 2014, Mr. Tepper was Vice President of Development at Matrix Development Group, where he managed the company’s urban redevelopment portfolio, seeking out new acquisitions of residential and mixed-use properties throughout New Jersey and suburban Philadelphia. Throughout his career, he has been involved in the entitlement, development and construction of over 4,500 multifamily apartment homes and 5 million SF of commercial space. Mr. Tepper is licensed in the State of New Jersey and earned a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration with concentrations in finance and international business from the University of Delaware.

Kevin Dudley joined CBRE’s Saddle Brook, New Jersey office as an Associate in 2010 and now serves as Executive Vice President. Kevin has become one of New Jersey’s “go to” industrial real estate brokers and is a consistent leader with a reputation for his hard-working persona. His extensive knowledge of the New Jersey industrial real estate market is unparalleled. Kevin’s team is one of the top industrial teams in New Jersey and his team’s transactions valued more than $800 million in the past year. Kevin provides occupier and agency representation services to clients throughout New Jersey. His primary focus is the selling and leasing of industrial facilities along the New Jersey Turnpike corridor. Kevin has a long record of successfully guiding local, national and multi-national clients with their commercial real estate needs. Kevin applies his expertise and market knowledge to industrial properties and consistently exceeds the investment goals of his clients. He accomplishes this through constant communication, and by being accessible whenever you need him. Kevin’s prestigious client list includes Blue Apron, Best Logistics, Mainfreight, Michael Kors, and MM.Lafleur. His clients choose to work with him for access to CBRE's full-service platform, transaction management and financial structuring. In addition to being an active member of CBRE’s Global Supply Chain practice and CBRE’s Industrial “Young Guns”, Kevin is the co-chair of CBRE's Tri-State African American Networking Group (AANG). Kevin graduated from the New Jersey Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Marketing. As an honors graduate from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Kevin embraces his strong analytical skills, creativity and enthusiasm to provide exceptional service to clients. Kevin currently resides in Ridgewood with his wife and four young children, and enjoys spending time with family, playing basketball and football, and cooking. Kevin is also the captain of CBRE’s basketball team.

Mitchell Berkey is chair of the firm’s Real Estate, Development and Land Use Group. He concentrates on all aspects of real estate ventures and transactions, including acquisitions, sales, financing, development, leasing, management, loan workouts, ownership restructuring and resolution of intra-ownership disputes. His extensive background spans all asset types, including office, retail, industrial, hospitality and mixed-use properties in markets across the United States. With three decades of experience on all sides of the transaction table, Mitch brings a business-oriented approach to his legal practice. As an attorney, he has advised institutional and entrepreneurial real estate owners, managers, lenders, corporate real estate users and foreign governments. As an asset manager, he was responsible for the management of a national portfolio of office, retail, industrial and residential properties.

Since 2016 Nicholas has served in the dual capacity as Director of Development and Director of Construction Procurement for Terminal Construction. As the Director of Real Estate Development, Mr. Dinallo oversees all day to day real estate operations including land acquisition, entitlements, financing, pre-construction activities, procurement of subcontractors and construction of projects. During his time in this role Mr. Dinallo has helped strengthen the Development Division of Terminal Construction through expanding into new property types and joint venture partnerships with Russo Development and Onyx Equities, with over $150 million in development projects planned for 2022-2023.

Brian Lovett is a Partner and Team Leader of the Tax and Real Estate Services Teams at Withum. Brian has extensive experience serving the tax needs of both public companies and closely held businesses, including all aspects of tax compliance for partnerships and corporations. He advises clients with regard to the structure and tax consequences of new business ventures, and assists with restructuring existing businesses for increased tax efficiency. On the real estate side, Brian has prior Big 4 experience working closely with large, multinational real estate investment companies. He now works closely with real estate entrepreneurs on acquisition planning and entity structuring, property operation and development and wealth transfer/succession planning. Brian is a licensed Certified Public Accountant in the States of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, licensed to practice law in the State of New Jersey, and a frequent speaker on technical tax topics for national webinars and various industry groups.

Eugene R. Diaz is the founder and principal partner at Prism Capital Partners. Prism, began in 2002 with a mission of strategically investing and developing solely in the Tri-State area, across a broad spectrum of asset classes and transaction sizes. Today, the firm employs more than forty (40) professionals providing construction, development, investment, and property management services to its many institutional partners and investors. Through his stewardship, the firm remains one of the state’s most active and respected redevelopers focusing on adaptive re-use and repurposing of excess corporate facilities and turn of the century industrial buildings. The firm actively develops from the ground up for multi-family, office, industrial and retail investments as well, and purchases both stabilized and un- stabilized income producing assets. The firm has exhibited a strong investment discipline and a corresponding track record that attracts joint venture equity capital from some of the most venerable global investment management firms. Prism is leaving an indelible mark on the New Jersey landscape with such notable redevelopments and adaptive reuses project like Parkway Lofts in Bloomfield, NJ, the 361 unit apartment conversion of the former 100 year old GE BoilerWorks Building on the Garden State Parkway, as well as the 333 unit apartment conversion of the 100 year old historically designated Thomas A Edison Battery and Invention Center in West Orange, NJ and the redevelopment of the 116 acre former Roche Pharmaceutical headquarters known as ON 3, which houses the prestigious Hackensack-Meridian Seton Hall College of Medicine. Previously, Diaz worked for Cushman & Wakefield and held several leadership positions at Gale & Wentworth, including chief investment officer responsible for directing and overseeing all aspects of the company's investment activities. During his tenure he grew the firm's owned investment portfolio from 500,000 square feet to more than 12 million square feet in eight states. Throughout his career, Diaz has been responsible for the acquisition and capitalization of more than 20 million square feet of commercial real estate with total transaction value in excess of $2.5 billion.. He is frequently quoted in many industry publications as well as topical pieces in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. He earned a master's degree in Real Estate Investment & Development from New York University, where he has frequented as a guest lecturer and stand-in professor. Diaz received undergraduate degrees in Economics and Political Science from Northwestern University. Early in his career Diaz was honored by Commercial Property News as one of their "Stars to Watch." and is regularly ranked by NJBIZ as one of New Jersey’s most influential real estate people ranking him 3rd out of the 75 most influential leaders. He is a past member of the Board of Trustees of Englewood Hospital and an Honorary Foundation Board Member of the Bergen Performing

Frank A. DiTommaso II joined Cushman & Wakefield’s Metropolitan Area Capital Markets Group in 2015 and is responsible for all aspects of the Investment Sales services including managing the underwriting and marketing of investment properties in the Tri-State Area with a particular focus on office properties and corporate dispositions. With over 10 years of Investment Sales experience, Frank has been involved in over $30 billion of office, medical, life science, retail, industrial, multifamily and corporate property sales. Frank was previously recognized on MAREJ’s list of 30 Under 30 Top Real Estate Professionals in the Mid-Atlantic Region, was a former recipient of Cushman & Wakefield’s Rising Star Award, a Costar Power Broker, and is actively involved with the NJ Chapter of NAIOP. Most recently, Frank was recognized by MAREJ for his involvement in arranging both the Largest Office Sale ($346,000,000) and Largest Medical Office Sale in 2022, while also nominated as a finalist for NAIOP NJ’s Deal of the Year Award.

James M. Maggio, Jr. is Counsel in Riker Danzig’s Real Estate Practice Group and is highly experienced in commercial real estate and related corporate transactions. His practice encompasses a wide variety of matters. Jim represents clients in complex commercial real estate matters, including joint ventures, primarily handling significant multimillion-dollar transactions. He has helped clients sell and acquire substantial commercial properties and to secure permanent and/or construction financing for the acquisition and/or development of significant office and industrial properties. Jim is also a member of the firm’s Financial Institutions Practice group and in that capacity has represented institutional lenders in complex financing transactions involving real estate. He also advises landlords and tenants in reviewing, negotiating and drafting office and industrial leases along with ancillary documents such as assignments, estoppels and subordination and non-disturbance agreements. In addition, he also regularly advises clients with respect to realty transfer taxes and the structuring of real property holdings.