Peyton Elder.
Peyton Elder, 24
Associate at Brookfield Properties
Peyton Elder first experienced New York’s commercial real estate industry via brokerage Cushman & Wakefield during a college internship in summer 2017. It was also then that she met someone from Brookfield Properties.
That led to an introduction to the asset side of the business — including a visit to Brookfield’s 15th-floor offices at Brookfield Place in Lower Manhattan. The 20-year-old stepped out of the elevator, saw the white marble workplace and the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor beyond, and that was it.
“What is this place?” Elder thought. “I have to work here.”
She would. The next summer, she interned on the asset management team led by Callie Haines, Brookfield’s regional head for Boston and New York. After graduation from the College of Charleston the next year, Elder became an analyst on Brookfield’s asset management team. In early 2021, she was promoted to associate — the youngest at the company now.
Elder works to enhance the offerings and value of Brookfield assets, not least those of that epiphanic Brookfield Place — where she helped launch last summer’s attractions-heavy Bungalow on the upper waterfront plaza — but also the company’s ongoing revamp of the old 666 Fifth Avenue. Brookfield is spending more than $400 million on turning the rebranded 660 Fifth into a top-shelf office tower.
Elder also worked with senior executives to roll out the Brookfield-backed The New Stand, a proptech initiative designed to further amenitize Brookfield’s properties through features such as streamlined food and drink ordering and internal communications. And, Elder has helped lead Brookfield’s internship program, paying it forward, so to speak.
The Westchester County native — “I had always been exposed to New York City real estate, but you don’t know until you know, if that makes sense” — says that the pandemic has only heightened her awareness of the opportunities still ahead of her, and the ones she’s already seized.
“As cliché as this sounds, something that’s always stuck with me — I played sports growing up, and my parents always told me ‘just leave it all on the field,’” Elder said. “You never want to look back thinking that you should have done more.”—T.A.
