Two former executives from Urban Edge Properties and Federal Realty Investment Trust, along with a third industry veteran, have joined forces to launch their own firm, Hg80.
Chris Weilminster and Timothy Mount are the founding partners of Hg80, a real estate investment and development firm that aims to help clients with projects; leasing and merchandising; asset management; deal structuring; and planning and design. Don Briggs is a managing partner at the new firm.
Weilminster announced Hg80's debut in a post on LinkedIn this week. He and Briggs have known each other for more than two decades and worked together at New York-based Urban Edge and Federal Realty in Rockville, Maryland, two REITs that are retail and mixed-use landlords. Mount, a design expert and urban planner is a founding partner of Street-Works Studio in Port Chester, New York.
The team at Hg80, with headquarters in Boston, has longstanding relationships with retailers and the real estate community, as well as experience with development projects and master planning, Weilminster told CoStar News on Friday.
"We believe there is an opportunity and a real need with either family offices, pension funds, private equity groups that have control of very large real estate ... [to] directly use our vision ... and turn it into something that adds real value and creates community for where that real estate sits," he said.
In its marketing brochure, Hg80 said it is looking to partner with owners and investors to reposition and redevelop underutilized properties into retail-driven mixed-use destinations; work with lenders to stabilize challenged properties; collaborate with towns to form public-private partnerships; invest alongside owners and developers; provide advisory services; and acquire retail, mixed-use and urban properties in New England, the Northeast, mid-Atlantic, Southeast and Florida.
As for the firm's name, Briggs explained he and his partners wanted to use something related to Mercury, the Greek god of speed, luck and commerce. And in numerology, 80 is associated with buildings that benefit the community. Hg80, the periodic symbol and atomic number for the element mercury, embodied all those ideas, according to Briggs.
Weilminster, the former chief operating officer of Urban Edge, left the firm roughly a year ago. During his four-year stint at the company, he was responsible for managing all operations and driving redevelopment activity for the REIT's shopping centers, which are concentrated in the New England to Washington, D.C., corridor.
Before that, Weilminster spent roughly 29 years at Federal Realty, with his last post there as an executive vice president and president of the REIT's mixed-use division.
Briggs worked with Weilminster for years at Federal Realty and then joined him when he went to Urban Edge, serving as president of development. Briggs spent the past two years as a managing director at Eastern Real Estate.
Mount and his design firm worked on various projects with Weilminster and Briggs at Federal Realty, including Assembly Row in Somerville, Massachusetts, and Pike & Rose in North Bethesda, Maryland.