Procida Has a 100-Day Plan

NEW YORK CITY-On a cold night in late January at Columbia University’s Avery Hall, William Procida–founder of the company that bears his name–stood before an audience of architecture students, investors and other real estate players to present his idea for thawing the nation’s frozen economy and solving its real estate woes.

Procida brings to the table 28 years of experience in both finance and development, as head of the Procida Organization and William Procida Inc.–which evolved into Palisades Financial, and last year, he brought back WPI–headquartered in Fort Lee, NJ–as a vehicle for turnaround management. And now, he calls his latest venture–Plan 100–a volunteer project, saying he was motivated by concern for his children’s future and great displeasure over his tax dollars being squandered.

Procida has been promoting his Plan 100 for a few months now. He argues that instead of funneling billions of dollars into the nation’s largest banks, the federal government should deploy $100 million, each, to 100 local investment managers. Those managers would then be required to purchase defaulted loans and make new loans to customers within 100 days. He says there is tremendous flexibility on the number of managers, but no compromise on the amount of time those investors would be able to hold the cash.