Laurie Golub and Craig Solomon.
Laurie Golub and Craig Solomon
Chief operating officer; chief investment officer at Affinius Capital
After working for more than a decade as a commercial real estate attorney, Laurie Golub had an opportunity to go in-house with Forest City Ratner.
Soon she wound up working on Brooklyn’s most complicated, large-scale infrastructure project since the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway: the $5 billion development of Atlantic Yards and the Barclays Center arena. It was the project of a lifetime. “We took an area that was largely blighted, and we created an opportunity for a grand-scale mixed-use development that energized Downtown Brooklyn and brought it back to life,” Golub said.
After executive stints at Africa Israel and HFZ Capital, she joined Square Mile Capital and helped USAA Real Estate complete its acquisition of Square Mile in 2021. Last year, Golub and Craig Solomon assisted with its rebranding to Affinius Capital, which currently has about $32 billion in assets under management.
“We’ve been partners for the last decade, so the integration was very smooth,” she said of the Square Mile deal. “Their credit funds had more insurance company-type lending and we have mezzanine and bridge and transitional lending, so we’re able to offer capital across the risk spectrum.”
Affinius’ portfolio consists of data and logistics sites, such as a life sciences office in Cambridge, Mass., a multifamily complex in Chicago, and a data center campus in Gainesville, Va. Golub said Affinius has sought to identify areas where technology is driving demand, which has led to a lot of data and logistics investments.
“We believe that data center development will be a primary focus as the industry continues to experience a mismatch between supply and demand driven by growth of the cloud and AI applications,” she said.
This year, Golub is leading the move of Affinius’ New York offices down the street from 350 Park Avenue to a 24,000-square-foot space at 277 Park Avenue, which recently underwent a $120 million renovation. “We love this building, but Citadel has plans to redevelop it and they didn’t renew the lease which expires in May,” she said.
