New Cities Investment Partners, LLC, was formed in 2015 to acquire, entitle and develop urban infill apartment sites in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. Its formation is, perhaps, the culmination of 40 years of legal and real estate development experience of its founder and principal owner, Lee E. Newell.

 

After graduation from UCLA, University of San Francisco School of Law and New York University School of Law, Graduate Division(Taxation), Mr. Newell practiced in New York and California before entering the real estate development business in 1980. In 1984, Mr. Newell formed New Cities Land Company, Inc., ("NCLC") and proceeded to develop several thousand single family homes and multifamily apartments in joint venture with Downey Savings & Loan, Weyerhaeuser Venture Company and several high net worth California families.

 

In 1989, Mr. Newell formed New Cities Development Group ("NCDG") with NCLC as its Managing Partner. NCDG formed multiple single asset entities with institutional investors such as the California Public Employees Retirement System ("CalPERS"), Prudential Companies and Institutional Housing Partners, as well as both domestic and off shore high net worth families. Throughout the decade of the 1990's, NCDG delivered some of the highest returns achieved by the CalPERS housing investment program, and won numerous industry awards for both architecture and land planning for its single family and multifamily developments as well as for its planned communities. In both 1996 and 1997, NCDG was ranked nationally by Builder Magazine in its "Builder 100".

 

In 2000, Mr. Newell sold much of his single family home building business and turned the focus of NCLC's business to land entitlement and land banking for eventual sale to publicly held home building companies. These companies experienced accounting procedure changes necessitating the inclusion of certain land assets onto their balance sheets. By 2004, NCLC owned or controlled over 15,000 lots in California, Arizona and Florida. It proceeded to liquidate or manage its lot inventory over the following four years.

 

In 2013, Mr. Newell began assessing various urban infill apartment sites in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. In 2014, several of these sites were put under contract. In 2015, Mr. Newell formed New Cities Investment Partners, LLC, to acquire additional apartment development opportunities which currently total almost 2,500 units and over $1 Billion in total value upon stabilization. These mixed income developments utilize a highly sophisticated financial structure consisting of tax exempt Multifamily Housing Bonds coupled with SIFMA variable interest rates and stepped interest rate caps, 4% tax credits and credit swaps, which effectuate below market financing and greatly expand cash flows.

 

For over 36 years, Mr. Newell has successfully developed mixed income multifamily residential projects, planned communities and other single family residential, condominium, office, industrial and retail developments totaling over $2.5 Billion in value.