Russo Development CEO Ed Russo (far right) speaks to East Brunswick High School students on May 21 at the firm’s Vermella Woodbridge property as part of a tour hosted by Urban Land Institute Northern New Jersey’s UrbanPlan program. — All photos courtesy: Russo Development
By Marlaina Cockcroft
The UrbanPlan program’s first-ever field trip offered something for everyone: Students at East Brunswick High School got an up-close look at real estate development, while the CEO of sponsor Russo Development got to promote his industry to a new generation.
“I would try to encourage you, at this stage in your lives, to think about real estate as an interesting career,” Ed Russo told the 10th- through 12th-graders before their tour of Vermella Woodbridge, a newly completed luxury apartment complex. That’s especially true if “you enjoy seeing things come out of the ground, and you enjoy looking back and saying, ‘Hey, what did I create?’” he added — an experience not often found in other industries.
The May 21 field trip was the latest addition to UrbanPlan, an initiative by the Urban Land Institute that allows students to participate in hands-on, simulated real estate planning while working side by side with top industry professionals. Launched locally in 2019 at East Brunswick High School, the program tasks them with creating a redevelopment plan for a dilapidated neighborhood in a fictional community, with each team member serving as finance director, marketing director, city liaison, neighborhood liaison or site planner.
Nearly 200 students in East Brunswick have participated to date under the guidance of ULI’s Northern New Jersey chapter. And the program is poised for continued growth with the involvement of Russo Development, which this year became the event sponsor in East Brunswick, and its newly announced expansion to East Orange.
“UrbanPlan’s focus on responsible and community-oriented development exemplifies the mission of the Urban Land Institute,” ULI NNJ Executive Director Mara Winokur said recently. “We look forward to building upon the success of our East Brunswick program as we welcome the students of East Orange high schools to experience the real estate development and urban planning process in action.”
ULI NNJ notes that UrbanPlan seeks to help students develop a comprehensive understanding of how market forces such as supply and demand, availability of capital, risk versus reward and others clash and collaborate with non-market forces, including regulation, politics and advocacy to create the built environment. That all culminates in an annual presentation in which teams present and defend their proposals in front of a volunteer-based mock city council.
As student Afnan Nasir explained, “We were given a fictional area called Elmwood and we had to basically revamp it, put in our own buildings, figure out new apartments and renovations that we had to make and then make sure that it lines up with the sentiments of the neighborhood.”
Aryan Rayana said that, with each student having a different role, “the idea was that all five or six of us had to figure out how to work together and meet our own goals while still aligning with the vision of what we want and what they want.”
The mock request for proposals the students received “gave us all the guidelines for the buildings and the developments that we had to do in Elmwood, and we also had to go off of the community members’ sentiments and make sure that everyone was equally represented in the community, which was definitely difficult,” added Hannah Smutko.
Their teacher, Jon Pawlowski, noted that the roughly 40 students participating this year had to “sell their vision for what they’re trying to develop” to the professionals serving as the mock city council, accounting for factors such as affordable housing and environmental concerns.
“It’s really cool to see what they do and how they do it,” said Pawlowski, who now leads the program in East Brunswick after it was launched under faculty member Marc Mondry.
ULI NNJ thinks so, too. Winokur said the chapter wants to “bring a real-world experience to the kids” and were excited to expand the program to East Orange this year.
“DEI is a big part of our overarching mission, so to get into an underserved school like that is important to us,” she said, referring to diversity, equity and inclusion. ULI hopes to add other New Jersey schools in the future, she said.
SLIDESHOW: Russo Development welcomes ULI NNJ's UrbanPlan program
This year was the first time that UrbanPlan students got to see the redevelopment process up close — with a before and after view. They started at the excavation site of Vermella East Brunswick, Russo’s mixed-use redevelopment project along Route 18 in partnership with River Development Equities. Next, they visited Vermella Woodbridge off Route 9 to see a completed project, touring the spacious clubhouse and grounds as well as a model unit.
At the East Brunswick site, which will feature ground-floor retail, apartments and townhouses, Russo Project Manager Alex Despotovich told the students, “Right now you’re looking at the different phases of starting a project from the ground up.” He said Building A will take about two years, while it will take another few years to complete Building B and to acquire and demolish additional property. He estimated the overall site at 40 acres.
Courtney Lopez and Gabriella Stasiulewicz, project architects for Russo, outlined the planned amenities for residents, such as clubrooms and business centers, as well as a public park and amphitheater. Lopez said there will be nearly 560 apartment units overall.
JLL broker Mike Lachs, a ULI NNJ board member and former cochair, estimated the project at $500 million. He predicted the new retail spaces would fill quickly, because it will be better-designed and it offers a prime location. “It really is a ‘Main and Main’ for East Brunswick.”
At Vermella Woodbridge, the students heard from Mayor John McCormac and Caroline Ehrlich, executive director of the Woodbridge Economic Redevelopment Agency, before both received ULI NNJ’s Excellence Award from board member Jim Zullo.
McCormac told the students that the site, previously owned by Hess, had been mostly vacant. Now, “this is the nicest apartment complex in Woodbridge by far,” providing about $2 million a year in tax revenue to the township, and it’s part of what he sees as the municipality’s rejuvenated downtown.
Ehrlich also encouraged the students to enter the real estate industry, saying, “It is so fulfilling to be able to take a vision and to be able to create it.”
Ed Russo took questions from the students on everything from the price of the Woodbridge units (from $500 for low-income applicants to around $3,000 for a two-bedroom), common development issues (getting the proper zoning in place) and how they fund projects (a mix of debt and equity).
“Some of the projects that we’re proudest of are in locations that were considered pioneer, meaning we weren’t seeing developers come in and build newer housing,” Russo said. In towns like Orange, Newark, Kearny and Rahway, rents were lower and developers didn’t want to take the risk of investing there, but his company is willing to go where other developers don’t to prove they can make it work.
While the students headed out to tour the 500-unit Vermella Woodbridge, Russo said demand has been good there. As for the East Brunswick site, vertical construction on the first building should begin in September, and Russo is hoping to open next spring.
The students got a lot out of the program and the tour.
“When you see it in real life it’s kind of rewarding because we worked so hard and you can tell that everyone who works here also worked so hard to make that happen,” Zaina Dhrolia said, “and I think that in our groups and in our teams we were able to create something that was almost as cool and as realistic as this.”
