Jake Bank, 29
Director of acquisitions and leasing at Aurora Capital Associates
Jake Bank says it upfront: “I’m really fortunate to have great mentors.”
They’ve been a notable bunch: Legendary investment sales broker Darcy Stacom, for whom Bank worked as an intern; Haim Chera and Ed Hogan at Vornado Realty, where he worked as a financial analyst on the Penn Station-area effort that produced the redone Farley Post Office and Moynihan Train Hall; and Craig Robins, the primary developer behind the Miami Design District.
That came via Bank’s regular networking. When he told Chera that “a guy named Craig Robins” from Miami was calling him, Chera told the younger man: “They’re going to offer you a job, you have to take the job.”
The job he got — just at the start of the pandemic.
“Miami ended up becoming the center of the world for a solid two, two and a half years,” Bank said. He bought and sold buildings for Robins, and did dozens of direct luxury retail leases.
But New York City was always the end game for the Scarsdale, N.Y., native and Connecticut College graduate whose father worked in the city as a real estate attorney. (The younger Bank’s first taste of the professional real estate life was through a Thor Equities internship.) He had met Bobby Cayre and Jared Epstein, whose ownership and development group Aurora Capital Associates was busy in New York, especially in a Meatpacking District that was transitioning from primarily a nightlife mecca to luxury — retail and otherwise. Bank became Aurora’s leasing and acquisitions director in early 2022. He has helped continue the district’s transition, with leases for designer Saint Laurent and skin care brand Aesop.
“Bobby and Jared are really able to create unbelievable partnerships to unlock value,” Bank said. “A ton of the properties in the Meatpacking District are fee ownerships, or controlling ownerships, but they’re via complex joint venture structures. So we’re constantly meeting new longtime owners in and around the Meatpacking District that want to unlock the value of their real estate; and we’re a great and trustworthy partnership for that.”
