Skylight Real Estate Partners Hires Russell Tepper to Lead Resi Development Business 

Skylight Real Estate Partners has launched a new residential development business, and tapped an industry veteran to lead it.

Russell Tepper stepped into the role at Skylight Residential Group, where he will lead ground-up multifamily development as well as the platform’s day-to-day business activities, Commercial Observer has learned. 

No stranger to the residential beat, Tepper spent almost 11 years at Mill Creek Residential Trust where he oversaw rental and mixed-use development activities for the investment company’s portfolio in the Northeast, which comprised 4,600 apartments and $2.2 billion of capitalization for development. Prior to Mill Creek, Tepper spent more than two decades at Matrix Development Group, where he managed the development of office, retail, industrial and residential properties. 

In his new role, Tepper joins Skylight Real Estate Partners’ founding partners Gavin Evans, Ben Joseph and Andrew Miller. 

“I wanted to continue my growth and use the expertise that I’ve gained over 30-plus years to join a firm that sees the value that I can create,” Tepper told CO. “The plan at Skylight is to build a portfolio of multifamily ground-up development in the same region I’ve focused on for decades — the Northeast. It’s a great opportunity, and there’s great synergy here between my development expertise and Ben, Gavin and Andrew’s expertise in other areas. I think there will be great synergies here, and I’m really excited about our long-term strategy. There’ll be short-term successes, of course, but we’ll also be prepping for a medium- and long-term value creation model.” 

Tepper will be building out Skylight’s residential development business from scratch, sourcing and executing deals alongside his new partners — which is something he’s looking forward to, and excels at. 

“When I joined Mill Creek back in 2014 there were a couple of deals in the pipeline and a couple of deals in construction, but we weren’t built for growth at a portfolio level, so I spent years doing that, and I’m going to do that here, too,” Tepper said. “We have the right people in place to do it at Skylight. It starts with great leadership, great camaraderie and collaboration, and those things already exist here. I’m just here to help grow this new business and make things even better.” 

Tepper met Miller serendipitously at an industry event a few years back. With the common connections in commercial real estate giving Kevin Bacon a run for his money in terms of degrees of separation, they were introduced by a common peer. 

“We ended up [sharing a car ride back to New Jersey], and it was sort of a quasi, ‘Let me get to know Russell, even though I don’t really need Russell right now,’ type conversation with Andrew,” Tepper said. “It went from there and over time, as I was starting to look at other opportunities and make a move, Skylight had a goal of building a development platform. I’m very appreciative of that coincidental meeting a few years ago.” 

In his new role, Tepper’s initial focus will be on multifamily development in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. 

“As we start to build a portfolio there, we’ll then expand to other markets within the Northeast,” Tepper said. “In the market we’re all experiencing right now, it will take some time to go beyond the core market of the metropolitan tri-state area, but we have the backbone to do that — literally and figuratively — and we believe that we’re at a point in the cycle right now where the time for setting the stage for growth is right in front of us. Construction debt is much more active, landowners have gotten a little bit of a reality check, underwriting deals has become a little bit easier, and deals are becoming a little bit more financeable. So, if you’re going to take on the goal of building a portfolio from the ground up, now’s a pretty good time to start.” 

As the platform progresses, Skylight Residential Group will likely join forces with partners in development deals. 

“We haven’t earmarked specific partners just yet, but I’m sure we’ll run the gamut of institutional as well as non-institutional firms, and a lot of that will have to do with geography and deal size,” Tepper said.  

Skylight was founded in March 2021, drawing on the founders’ diverse skill sets and expertise across multiple asset classes and markets to form one united platform. 

Skylight’s Miller said that Tepper was the only person to take the helm of its residential development business as Skylight begins to target ground-up construction in high-barrier-to-entry markets in the New York tri-state region.

”The only way to access those markets at a profitable price point is to build there, and the process is very specialized,” Miller told CO. “Russell has been doing this for 30 years now, and there are very few people who know those markets and have the ability to navigate through them like he does. He’s done business with everyone — there’s an art to get entitlements, and he’s mastered it — he has a trusted reputation, and he has his own relationships. So, who’s better than Russell Tepper to lead our suburban residential development business?” 

Miller said Skylight will deploy a similar strategy on other asset classes in the future, with residential simply being the first vertical launched. “Not that one [asset class]  is more important than the next, but what is important is to have the right person — and that’s Russell.” 

Tepper, a New Jersey native, earned a business administration  degree with a focus in finance from the University of Delaware. He’s married to his high school sweetheart, and has a daughter and son. And, as he starts Day 4 of his new role at Skylight, he’s thankful for commercial real estate’s six degrees of separation in his next chapter, and Miller’s need to hitch a ride that night. 

 “One of the things I’ve learned doing this for as long as I’ve done this is that you never know where something’s going to lead to, and so you never burn a bridge, and you always maintain relationships,” Tepper said.  “The most innocent of conversations can lead to the next deal, the next investment or the next opportunity.” 

Cathy Cunningham can be reached at ccunningham@commercialobserver.com