Russell Tepper
By Joshua Burd
Longtime development executive Russell Tepper has a new home and a new venture after teaming with Skylight Real Estate Partners to launch a ground-up multifamily platform.
Tepper — a fixture in New Jersey commercial real estate during more than 30 years with Mill Creek Residential Trust and Matrix Development Group — is president of the new Skylight Residential Group as it builds a development pipeline throughout the Northeast. He’ll do so alongside Skylight Real Estate Partners’ founding principals — Gavin Evans, Ben Joseph and Andrew Miller — with a focus on building market-rate and affordable housing in regions that are experiencing meaningful undersupply.
Skylight Residential Group described its team as highly entrepreneurial, adding that it has the skillset to develop apartments and mixed-use projects in low-, mid- and high-rise buildings of varying densities. The venture, which will source, finance, build and manage the projects, will also pursue redevelopment of underutilized properties that are no longer achieving the fiscal results that were originally intended.
“I’m very excited to be leading the team in implementing this portfolio growth strategy,” Tepper said. “Having developed properties throughout the region for my entire career, I am passionate about building ‘homes’ that help meet the needs of so many of our neighbors while also creating meaningful value for our team and partners.”
As president, Tepper leads all efforts to source and execute Skylight Residential’s ground-up multifamily rental development strategy and is responsible for managing the day-to-day activities associated with new communities that it will develop. He most recently was a senior managing director at Mill Creek Residential Trust, where he spent more than 10 years and was responsible for all development activities in the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania region.
That amounted to more than 4,600 apartments and some $2.2 billion of capitalization for development, according to a news release. And it followed 21 years at Matrix, where Tepper was vice president, development, and managed the development activity for more than 5.3 million square feet of office, retail and industrial space as well as more than 1,600 apartments.
Tepper holds a bachelor’s in business administration with a degree in finance from the University of Delaware.
“The financing, development and management synergies created by this venture are tremendous, Miller said. “I and my partners are so impressed with Russell’s experience and look forward to many years of significant and sustainable value creation with him.”
Skylight Real Estate Partners is a privately held real estate investment firm with deep experience acquiring, developing and managing residential and commercial assets in the prime U.S. markets of New York, New Jersey, Washington D.C. and central and south Florida. That includes several deals in New Jersey, such as the 2022 acquisition of the 276-unit Hudson Lights property in Fort Lee and several major deals in Edgewater and Hoboken.
The team says its management platform is focused on three complementary investment strategies: distressed, value-add and development opportunities. Since 1998, the founding partners have collectively invested $5.5 billion of equity in assets totaling over $18 billion of gross asset value, which translates to some 9,000 residential units and 20 million square feet of office and retail assets.
