The president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, Tucker Reed, is set to step down from his position in August.
Reed will be leaving the local development nonprofit after four and a half years in charge, according to an email sent to the organization’s members by co-chair MaryAnne Gilmartin, who is also the CEO of Forest City Ratner Companies, Commercial Observer reported.
During his tenure, Reed pushed a variety of commercial and residential development plans, including the Brooklyn Tech Triangle, an alliance with the Dumbo Business Improvement District and the Brooklyn Navy Yard to reduce office vacancies in the area. In Downtown Brooklyn, those vacancies dropped to 1.5 percent last year from 10 percent when Reed took charge, according to Gilmartin’s email.
More recently, Reed has agitated for colleges and universities to develop student housing on what he said were millions of square feet of unused air rights they owned in the neighborhood. He’s also attempted to lobby the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who are in the process of selling their Brooklyn real estate and leaving town, to donate $50 million to Brooklyn before they depart.
Before his term at the Partnership, Reed spent three years as a special projects director at Two Trees Management. According to the Observer, Gilmartin’s letter suggested that while Reed hadn’t yet made a decision about his future plans, he was considering returning to real estate industry. [CO] – Ariel Stulberg