Posted by admin on May 21, 2013
The New York Observer released its Power 100 list and Andrew Farkas was named #17. There were 167 on this year’s list and 40% of those people work in the ownership and development sectors. This clearly indicates that real estate professionals are on a buying spree and the value of land is bouncing back. The other professionals listed are architects, attorneys, financiers and politicos.
Andrew Farkas is chairman and CEO of Island Capital Group (ICG) and C-III Capital Partners, a controlled affiliate of ICG. C-III controls 40% of Centerline Capital Group. These three firms offer a broad range of real estate investment services, including special servicing, affordable and conventional multi-family lending services, management of $2 billion of invested capital across four debt funds, and loan origination. Last January, C-III acquired NAI Global, which gave C-III access to 5,000 more real estate professionals.
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Posted by admin on Jun 15, 2012
Andrew Farkas, Chairman and CEO of Island Capital Group and CEO of C-III Capital Partners, was ranked #16 in The New York Observer’s annual Power 100 list. The Power 100 includes New York City brokers, developers, attorneys, politicos, landlords and lenders who worked hard, won awards, and received promotions. The Observer took note that C-III Capital Partner’s purchase of NAI Global gave Farkas access to 5,000 more real estate professionals. It also brought him one step closer to achieving his goal of building a fully diversified commercial real estate services company.
C-III Capital Partners provides innovative real estate and debt solutions and is engaged in a wide range of activities, including loan origination, primary and special loan servicing, fund management, and principal investment. It’s headquartered in Irving, Texas, but also has offices in New York, South Carolina, Virginia, Illinois, and Tennessee. C-III is a controlled affiliate of Island Capital Group.
Island Capital Group (ICG) is an international real estate merchant bank headquartered in New York City. ICG is also involved in a broad range of activities, including investment management, principal investment, consulting services and development, and financial advisory.
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Posted by admin on Apr 2, 2012
From 2005 to 2007, Farkas Hall, previously known has New College Theatre, was being renovated. The six-story complex was originally built in 1888. Despite the modern updates to the interior, the building maintains its original façade and entryway. The theater is now a vibrant rehearsal, performance and learning space for undergraduates at Harvard. The 270-seat theater contains a moveable stage and state-of-the-art sound and lighting systems. Furthermore, there are classrooms, a dance studio and offices for student groups. The Hasty Pudding Lobby displays the club’s pivotal role at Harvard through plaques, posters and photographs.
The space has been both refreshed but preserved, “and that is wonderful,” says Andrew Farkas, who served as the Hasty Pudding Club president for two years. “This is the Hasty Pudding’s historic home.”
Andrew Farkas’ gift to the theater was in honor of his father, Robin Farkas, and to show appreciation for Harvard College and the Hasty Pudding Club. In regards to his father, Andrew said, “He has been my father, my mentor, my best friend, and my role model, and he talked me into choosing Harvard.”
Andrew Farkas currently serves as CEO of Island Capital Group and C-III Capital Partners. He is co-leading the 30th Reunion Class Gift Committee.
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Posted by admin on Feb 10, 2012
Reina Gattuso, a reporter for The Harvard Crimson, recently sat down with Andrew Farkas to discuss the new Farkas Hall. After a recent donation to Harvard University, the New College Theater is being renamed Farkas Hall. He originally suggested the theater be renamed The Farkatorium, but the University decided against it.
Andrew Farkas graduated from Harvard University in 1982 and is now CEO of Island Capital Group and C-III Capital Partners. As an undergraduate, he served as president of the Hasty Pudding Club, which was founded in 1770 and is the oldest college social club in the United States. The Club is also the third-oldest theatrical organization in the world and five U.S. presidents were members.
While he was the undergraduate president of the Pudding, it was in serious financial trouble. To raise money and save the Club, he hosted a gala. Andrew Farkas recounts, “I got the Copley Plaza Hotel to give me 900 bottles of champagne for a very, very cheap price. Then I sold tickets, basically door-to-door, for a gala in honor of the Hasty Pudding.” The gala brought in about $35,000, which covered the Club’s budget for a whole year.
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Posted by admin on Oct 31, 2011
The New College Theatre, created from 2005 to 2007 by new construction behind, and a renovation of, the façade of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals venue, finally has a name. The University announced today that Andrew Farkas ’82 had endowed the complex in honor of his father, Robin L. Farkas ’54, M.B.A. ’61. Andrew Farkas, who served as Hasty Pudding Club president during two of his undergraduate years, called his times there “amongst the most joyful and memorable” of his College experiences, according to the news release. “To know that the space will…serve to incubate the creative skills of Harvard’s emerging talent,” his statement continued, “is extremely gratifying.”
Andrew Farkas founded and was CEO and chairman of Insignia Financial Group Inc., a leading owner-operator of multifamily housing and provider of commercial real-estate leasing and management services. After its units were sold and merged, respectively, in 1998 and 2003, he founded Island Capital Group, a real-estate merchant bank, where he is CEO and chairman, and Island Global Yachting, which owns and operates yacht-oriented resorts.
In prior Harvard service, he was co-chair of the class of 1982’s twenty-fifth reunion fundraising efforts, which produced a class gift of $22.8 million in 2007. The newly announced philanthropy (the terms and size of which were not disclosed) comes as he is approaching his thirtieth reunion next May. Daughter Arielle S. Farkas is a member of the class of 2013.
Beyond his undergraduate theatrical experience, according to the news release, his wife, Sandi Goff Farkas, is a playwright; she founded the nonprofit Playwrights of New York to support emerging writers and serves on the board of Lark Play Development Group, in New York.
The New College Theatre, at 12 Holyoke Street, was constructed when the Faculty of Arts and Sciences was willing to proceed on projects before outside financing had been secured; the project cost a reported $31 million. Since the 2008 financial crisis and recession, the University has reduced debt financing for building projects. The Hasty Pudding structure, dating from 1888, had deteriorated and was in need of urgent repairs; the renovation grew into a more ambitious program to provide badly needed undergraduate rehearsal and performance space—the first such new facility since the Loeb Drama Center opened in 1961.
As an arts venue, the theater within the newly named Farkas Hall, which seats 256 to 280, has become a focal point for undergraduate theatrical productions, as well as the annual Hasty Pudding extravaganza (it is also home to the Harvard Krokodiloes and Radcliffe Pitches a cappella groups), and is frequently used for lectures, guest-artist appearances, and other College programming.
View the original article in the Harvard Magazine.
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Posted by admin on Oct 17, 2011
In the Midtown offices of the Lark Play Development Center on Tuesday, the playwright Sandi Goff Farkas was awarded the first ever Lark Risktaker Award for her creation of the Playwrights of New York (Pony) Fellowship. Pony supports emerging playwrights with a monthly stipend and the use of an apartment for a year.
Katori Hall, a Pony recipient whose play “The Mountaintop” started at the Lark in 2007 and opens on Broadway on Thursday, was on hand to give Ms. Goff Farkas her award. She neighed at the presentation of a glass pony and described the benefactor as “the most gorgeous woman with legs as tall as skyscrapers. I was like, ‘What is this woman doing helping the Lark?'”
Ms. Goff Farkas, who writes plays and screenplays “about business people and their family dynamics,” said she created Pony because she saw the pull of Hollywood over New York for young writers. “I witnessed a lot of great plays not get written,” she said. She asked her husband, Andrew Farkas, the CEO of Island Capital Group, to buy an apartment, “and he did,” and asked 12 friends for $2,500 each “to support a playwright for a month.” She thanked everyone “who ponied up here” for the evening and “my own patron,” i.e. Andrew Farkas, “who puts me in a nice apartment. I get a stipend and he gives me support in every category.”
Read the full article on The Wall Street Journal.
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