David Schwartz and Martin Nussbaum

Slate Property Group has dug in as a reliable deliverer of large affordable housing projects, winning the nod to build a 600-unit development in Manhattan’s Inwood neighborhood and buying the former Stewart Hotel, across from Madison Square Garden, to convert into 579 units of low-income and transitional housing. Previously, Slate similarly converted the former JFK Hilton hotel and pushed Steve Cohen’s Queens casino bid over the finish line with a commitment to build 450 affordable apartments within the future complex.

Given the active pipeline and Slate’s vertically integrated business model (that isn’t pitching business outside the firm), David Schwartz offered a concise summary of the year: “Marketing!”

Separate from its high-volume business in affordable housing, Slate has kept a toe in the boutique luxury market where far fewer occupants offer far higher margins. The company recently sold out its eight-unit Greenwich Village condo building, dubbed the Katharine, for $91 million after buying the former dormitory for $23 million five years ago. It also has partnered to buy two multifamily buildings in Tribeca, at 45 White Street and 81 Franklin Street, which Martin Nussbaum expects will come to market — one rental and one for sale — in the next six months.

Bridging the gap in size and affordability, Slate will bring 95 new apartments to a vacant corner at Fifth Avenue and East 33rd Street, across from the Empire State Building, availing itself of the state’s latest tax abatement program to keep a quarter of units permanently affordable.

According to Nussbaum, this was also the year that Scale Lending, the company’s private credit arm, reached an inflection point. “We’ve had a successful nine-year run on the credit side,” he said, “and that success has led to institutional investors coming to us.”

The creditor has doubled its book of business to get $2 billion out the door in the last 12 months across a dozen loans up and down the East Coast, Nussbaum said, with another $1 billion expected to close before summer ends.

“Even though rents are coming down in some markets,” Schwartz explained, “rents are not coming down for low-income. We’re looking at where you have big migration in and big rent growth, and that’s where we have a lack of affordable housing.”