By Joshua Burd
One of the state’s top real estate attorneys has joined the executive committee at The Center for Real Estate at Rutgers Business School.
The academic program last week announced the appointment of Anne S. Babineau of Wilentz Goldman & Spitzer P.A. to the top committee within its advisory board. Babineau, who co-chairs her firm’s real estate practice, joins some of the state’s most powerful developers and professionals in overseeing the roughly three-year-old real estate center.
As a member of the executive committee, she will serve as a conduit of information, knowledge and best practices to students, industry peers, government and academia, according to a news release. The committee is also charged with setting the academic course for the center and overseeing an advisory board that includes dozens more industry leaders from New Jersey.
“Anne’s expertise in the real estate industry has been demonstrated numerous times on award-winning projects throughout New Jersey,” Carl Goldberg, co-chair of the center’s executive committee, said in a prepared statement. He added that “her broad influence will aid in raising awareness for the Center. She will be an excellent role model for our students. We are proud to welcome Anne to the Executive Committee and look forward to working with her.”
Babineau has a strong record in some of the state’s most challenging redevelopment projects, the news release said. Her work has included the revitalization of the industrial port area of Newark, with multiple large warehouse logistics centers; a transformative mixed-use project on a former 60-acre golf course in Roselle; and deployment of government financing programs to reclaim three landfills in Carteret and help develop a large warehouse.
The projects also include structuring a redevelopment that allowed one of the nation’s largest wholesale food distributors to remain in Elizabeth in a state-of-the-art facility. Rutgers also pointed to her experience with large, long-term redevelopment areas such as the Newport section of Jersey City, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s southern waterfront in Hoboken and waterfronts of Weehawken, Asbury Park and Long Branch.
“As a member of the Executive Committee since the inception of the Rutgers Center for Real Estate, I could not be more pleased to have Anne join,” said Paul V. Profeta of Paul V. Profeta and Associates Inc. “She brings a wealth of experience and expertise in the field of real estate development law and will aid us in bringing the Center to its next level.
“Her commitment to the revitalization of Newark and the rest of New Jersey’s cities make her an excellent choice to join this committee.”
Babineau lectures often on redevelopment issues for New Jersey Institute of Continuing Legal Education, Rutgers University, the Department of Community Affairs, New Jersey Builders Association, New Jersey Bar Association and American Planning Association, among others. Having served on industry organizations such as New Jersey Future, The Counselors of Real Estate, NAIOP, American College of Real Estate Lawyers and Urban Land Institute, Babineau has also authored articles for New Jersey Law, Urban Land and other publications.
She was active as a volunteer board member of organizations that undertook affordable housing projects.
“We rely on our Executive Committee to bring practical and real world knowledge and experiences from every sector of our industry into our Center with the goal of providing the most advanced and innovative curriculum and the most important and timely research available for real estate,” said Morris A. Davis, the Paul V. Profeta Chair and Academic Director of the Center for Real Estate at Rutgers Business School. “The consolidation and dissemination of this knowledge will serve as a focal point for addressing New Jersey’s — and, subsequently, the country’s — difficult and complex business and real estate issues, and will inspire the next generation of real estate leaders.”
Editor’s note: Paul V. Profeta is the owner and publisher of Real Estate NJ. Profeta’s $1.5 million donation in 2013 helped launch The Rutgers Center for Real Estate and endow an academic chair in the field. The program has since attracted broad support from some of the state’s top players in real estate, with a stated goal of becoming the top academic and research program of its kind, while improving the industry and providing a link between the state’s top real estate firms and the next generation of professionals.
