Ken Griffin

Ken Griffin may not be a real estate mogul like many on this list, but the financier is going all in on real estate, from New York to Miami. In recent years, the billionaire has spent huge sums of money to secure properties for the financial firms he founded, hedge fund Citadel and market maker Citadel Securities.

In New York City, Griffin is laying the groundwork for a 51-story office tower at 350 Park Avenue, where his companies will become the largest tenants, occupying half of the development. 

The saga began two years ago, when Griffin teamed with his corporate landlords, Rudin and Vornado Realty Trust, to purchase a nearby townhome for $40 million. A few months later, they agreed to purchase up to 525,000 square feet of air rights from St. Patrick’s Cathedral from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, which could cost as much as $164 million. This year, the trio struck again, going under contract for $78 million to buy the air rights of another nearby church, St. Bartholomew’s.

Similarly, in Miami, Citadel is in the early stages of developing a mixed-use tower, designed by Pritzker Prize winner Norman Foster, that will serve as the company’s global headquarters. Two years prior, it paid $363 million for a 2.5-acre waterfront site, setting a record for site purchases in the Magic City.  

In the meantime, Griffin, a major Republican donor, has positioned himself as somewhat of a kingmaker in Florida. This year, he donated $100 million to build two new medical centers in the Miami area. The billionaire helped reshape a Florida bill that barred Chinese nationals from buying property in Florida to make it less restrictive for those who have work permits. In another instance, when he objected to a proposed state house bill that would make it easier to open casinos across Florida, that bill died.