On the fast track in New Jersey

Real Estate Weekly, Dec 12, 2001 by Elaine Misonzhnik

According to Jeffrey M. Brown, a 30-year veteran of the construction industry, the one thing he has always tried to avoid in his professional life is surprises.

"They are the last thing you want in this business," he explains.

"Our objective as a company is to make very clear, before the job even begins, what the goals of the project are and what strategies we are going to use to achieve those goals, so that everybody knows exactly what his role is going to be."

Brown is the CEO of Jeffrey M. Brown Associates, an East Coast construction and development firm that is currently working on several office buildings on the New Jersey waterfront for the Mack-Cali Corporation. Jeffrey M. Brown Associates has done almost every kind of construction there is -- corporate headquarters for Charles Schwab & Co., a distribution center for Tiffany & Co., a children's center for the Manhattan Hospital for Joint Diseases. But in Browns view his firm's specialization is fast track projects.

"We use every technique, every opportunity possible to streamline the entire construction process," he explains. "The building business is a pretty primitive business. Although we have all kinds of innovative ways to communicate, what it comes downs to is that we really have to make sure that everyone stays focused and aware that any issues they face have to be resolved as soon as possible, preferably before the construction phase begins."

According to Brown that was how he was able to get the contract for Harborside Plaza 4, 5, and 10, a part of Jersey City's growing office park.

"We did about five or six projects for the Mack Corporation before that one," he says. "And among those projects, we did a building called Plaza 10 two years ago -- Mack-Cali asked five or six builders to submit proposals on their approach to deliver the project in a very short time frame. We were selected over six of the country's biggest builders.

At the moment, however, Brown is more excited about his firm's emerging development division. He is currently in the process of getting approvals for the development of a 400,000 SF mixed-use project in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn. Development is a sort of a side business for him, Brown explains, -- he likes to take on unique projects if they come up, but he is not as aggressive about it as he could be.

"The project in DUMBO, we've been working on it for two and a half years because we had to change the zoning classification from industrial to mixed-use," he says. "It will have underground parking, a retail floor on the street level, a 100,000 SF of commercial space, and then above that base we are building two irregular shaped towers that will provide 153 condo apartments. The project is called Light Bridges because the slender towers are going to be connected by a glass bridge which will serves as a corridor for people when they get off the elevator. That's the kind of development that we do -- it's varied and we do it on a selected basis. We look to build something special and this has unique qualities."

Listening to him talk about construction projects with such enthusiasm, one could never guess that he entered the real estate business on a whim and never really intended to stay for the long term.

"I started in the construction industry in 1971," Brown recalls, "when I just graduated from George Washington University. I was a philosophy major and intended to go to law school, but before doing that I wanted to work for a while. So I took a job with Leonard Schaffer Associates, a construction firm in Philadelphia that did all kinds of construction -- office space, healthcare, industrial. And I started there basically as a trainee."

In the 13 years that Brown has spent at the firm he has held every position imaginable, from an assistant project superintendent to a marketing executive. Eventually he ended up as Leonard Schaffer Associates' president and decided that he was ready to come to New York.

"In 1984 I started my own business with about 3 employees," he says. "Today we operate in 14 state on the East Coast and have more than 160 employees. And the thing I am most proud of is that we get an incredible amount of repeat business. In the construction business, people get their first job in all different ways, but they never get the second job by accident."