Matter Real Estate

The new policy favors new development over existing residential property. From the article: "The good news is now there’s much more clarity as to what can be developed and how the menu of incentives will affect housing production moving forward. However, it comes with the cost of more regulation on free-market housing and not a drastic improvement to the extreme regulation for rent-stabilized housing. As a result, we believe this policy is neutral to challenging for existing building owners and advantageous for developers." https://lnkd.in/ez47_pnW

We are excited to see how this recently announced investment by the City and State will lead to additional development on the Brooklyn waterfront. This $95 million initiative will modernize the waterfront, create thousands of jobs, and improve the movement of freight throughout the City. At Matter, we understand the value of growth and investment in our communities. https://lnkd.in/eX3nqf43

We are proud to be working with Equality Charter School on the renovation and expansion of a 63,000 sq. ft. school building in The Bronx. We've now worked together with Equality on several projects including several smaller renovation projects at their existing schools.

As Easter approaches, we would like to extend our warmest wishes to our clients and friends on LinkedIn.

Recent data from the 2023-24 New York State Education Department (NYSED) show charter school enrollment in the city has grown by 4.1% over the past academic year. Some additional data points we thought were notable and worth sharing: - Charter school kindergarten enrollment has seen a particularly notable increase, rising by 5.4% between the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years - Hispanic student enrollment in NYC charter schools increased by 7.0% between the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years - More than one out of every three Black kindergarten students, or 36.8%, now attends a New York City charter school - English language learners comprise 10.1% of all charter school students, while students with disabilities make up nearly 19% https://lnkd.in/efXCtWr9

Our work with the Manhattan Bible Church (MBC) is exemplary of the real estate services we provide to NYC faith-based organizations. We started working with MBC in August 2020 and helped them evaluate two properties they own that were upzoned during the rezoning of Inwood. Together, we developed a set of clear objectives: 1. Provide a state-of-the-art facility to bolster the work of the ministries 2. Take advantage of unused air rights and unlock funds to invest in the ministries 3. Funds from a transaction should provide a recurring, long-term financial benefit that accomplishes financial sustainability 4. Maintain ownership of property We are on our way to accomplishing those objectives. We issued an RFP to the development community with our requirements, selected a qualified developer, oversaw negotiations and the execution of legal agreements, and helped to obtain approval from the Attorney General. We expect to be able to share more once the transaction closes.

We're happy to have partnered with Amber Charter Schools by overseeing the complete renovation of a 60,000 sq. ft. school building in Inwood. We continue to work with Amber by developing a space plan that helps them rethink how best to use the existing space and accommodate increasing student enrollment.

We are curious to hear how everyone has incorporated work from home into their work routines. What does your team do that works well? What hasn’t worked well? At Matter, we work from home on Tuesdays and Fridays and from the office during the remaining weekdays. We all follow the same schedule to benefit from being in the office to problem solve and project plan. We consider in-person time to be critical for new hires who we are onboarding. Technology also helps. We use Slack to communicate quickly and are not shy about using Slack or Zoom to schedule impromptu video conversations to talk through issues. We use Monday (software) to manage tasks collaboratively and Google Docs to work on deliverables together. These tools are central to our approach to remote work because they help us organize tasks, clearly assign responsibilities, and prioritize tasks to focus on what is urgent and important. Finally, we’ve implemented what we call “end-of-day check-ins.” We close every day by having each project team meet to address open questions and hard-to-solve problems, and we use the time together to plan the next steps and key tasks for the next day. We consider our end-of-day check-ins a key ingredient in our secret sauce. 

https://lnkd.in/epjvYV3J This is a helpful 5-minute video produced by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University. The video summarizes 4 key findings from the Center's latest 2023 study: 1. In both reading and math, charter schools provide students with stronger learning 2. Some charter schools provide less student learning than their local district schools, although a larger proportion delivers better learning outcomes 3. The larger scale of CMOs does not guarantee high performance — but on balance, it helps 4. Charter schools and networks, as do the systems that oversee them, improve over time

Celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day