Alex Staikos.
Alex Staikos, 31
Director at JLL
Alex Staikos learned during his time at Boston University that a career in commercial real estate was the path he wanted to forge, even though BU did not have a formal real estate program at the time.
“Although I’m the first in my family to enter real estate — or even attend college for that matter — I realized early in my college career that I wanted to be in commercial real estate,” said Staikos, who majored in finance at BU’s Questrom School of Business. “I became heavily involved in real estate during college, both in and out of the classroom. Through this experience, and speaking with many, many people in the industry, I recognized that this career path was the perfect way for me to apply all of my interests, including finance, the built environment and dealmaking.”
Staikos was proactive in preparing for the commercial real estate world. He served as president of the BU Real Estate Club, and was a teaching assistant for a real estate finance course.
Staikos joined HFF as an analyst a year and a half after graduating in 2015. JLL acquired HFF in 2019, and he worked his way up the ladder to director in September 2021. Staikos has closed more than $8.6 billion of deal volume from 146 deals throughout his seven-year career at HFF and JLL. He estimates the average transaction is around $59 million.
“I feel really lucky that I had that opportunity to cut my teeth on such a wide variety of transactions working for some of the smartest people in the business,” Staikos said. “I work on every sort of financing from stabilized deals, to transitional, and plenty of construction.”
The largest deal of Staikos’ young career so far has been a $1.125 billion senior construction loan from Goldman Sachs on a mixed-use project called TSX Broadway in Times Square for L&L Holding Company, Maefield Development and Fortress Investment Group. His largest deal of 2022 involved a $540 million construction financing package led by Bank OZK for Rabina’s 520 Fifth Avenue. —A.C.
