Nicholas Maki, 30
Senior associate at Kushner Companies
An internship at Kushner Companies that enabled Nicholas Maki to work as a summer analyst in 2014, just prior to senior year at Johns Hopkins University, opened his eyes to a career in commercial real estate.
“That summer was fascinating for me, and I quickly realized that this is something that I found super interesting and wanted to pursue a career in,” said Maki, who majored in economics at Johns Hopkins. “Fortunately for me, I was able to secure a full-time job there starting in the summer of 2015 and have been here ever since.”
Much of Maki’s role at Kushner has involved obtaining financing for Kushner’s many development projects. The biggest deal of his career (so far) involved facilitating a $515 million debt package led by AIG for the first phase of Kushner’s One Journal Square mixed-use project in Jersey City, N.J., which will consist of 966 housing units and 40,000 square feet of retail pre-leased to Target. The project is now ahead of schedule, according to Maki, and slated to be completed in the first half of 2025, with the second phase to be delivered 12 months later.
Maki was recognized by Kushner Companies early in his CRE career when the firm named a pool bar at the Wave Resort in Long Branch, N.J., after Maki, in recognition of his contributions obtaining construction financing for the boutique hotel project.
Maki said his near-term goal is to expand Kushner’s extensive multifamily development pipeline, which includes roughly 10,000 apartment units split between New Jersey and South Florida.
“We have about five or six active projects and a lot in the pipeline,” Maki said. “There’s just a ton of deals in both those markets that are going to be shovel-ready within the next 12 to 18 months, so it’s really about executing those and adding those units to our portfolio.”
Outside of working in Kushner’s New York City office, Maki says he enjoys traveling and golfing as well as hanging out with friends and family.
