Normandy Hires Leasing Agent for Hancock Tower

MORRISTOWN, NJ-Following its recent buy of the John Hancock Tower in Boston, locally based Normandy Real Estate Partners has hired Mark Roopenian, formerly an executive of the seller, to lease that building. Back in March, Normandy and Five Mile Capital Partners acquired the 60-story tower via an auction for $20.1 million, plus the assumption of $640.5 million in debt.

The seller was Broadway Real Estate Partners, which paid $1.3 billion for the property in 2006. Roopenian comes to Normandy from Broadway, where he was vice president, leasing and asset management, for that company’s Boston holdings. He supervised all leasing, asset management and capital improvement programs for Broadway’s four-million-square-foot Boston area portfolio, which included the Hancock building.

Previously, he was a partner at Boston’s Chiofaro Co. for 23 years. While there, he led a team that executed hundreds of lease transactions, completed over one million square feet of ground-up development and closed over $1 billion of construction and permanent financing for various projects. As vice president with Normandy, he will supervise all leasing activities in the Boston CBD. Including the 1.8-million-square-foot Hancock Tower, Normandy now owns and manages more than 6.2 million square feet of commercial space in the Boston area, including 99 Summer St. and 150 Newton in North Quincy.

“We know the value local knowledge adds when doing business in Boston,” says Ray Trevisan, principal of Normandy, in a statement. “Mark’s deep familiarity with Boston real estate, honed through more than 20 years of hands-on leadership, makes him an excellent choice to drive the leasing of an iconic property like the John Hancock Tower.”

Normandy currently manages a series of discretionary funds totaling $1 billion in equity commitments and its existing portfolio includes 14 million square feet of commercial assets, four hotels and several land development sites. It targets properties in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic markets of Boston, Metro New York City and Washington, DC.

To read about the story behind the Hancock Tower deal, read this month’s Real Estate New Jersey click here.