We all know about how Johnathan Gray went around and bought up single family homes in 2008-09 and created a new sector in single-family rentals.
What are other revolutionary / seemingly revolutionary bets that have been taken in real estate private equity?
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The Irvine Ranch Acquisition by Donald Bren
Donald Bren is such a boss. Crazy he owns the entire company.
Any reading material that goes more in depth than wiki?
There's a book on amazon detailing the history of the company (acquisition, operations from farming and cattle to master-planning, development, spin-offs, IPO and then take-private of the multifamily business etc)
Not really a revolutionary bet, but Century City in LA used to be just a bunch of Fox Studio lots until they made the movie Cleopatra in 1963 that cost ~$44mm to make. It was a financial disaster and nearly bankrupted the studio. As a result they had to sell off most of the land, which eventually turned into Century City.
If I remember correctly Henry Pellatt (Canadian industrialist and real estate magnate) got most of his early wealth by realizing the potential for the trans-continental railroad in Canada and bought up tons of cheap land that would have been otherwise useless. Dude got so rich he built Casa Loma, the only "castle" in North America and a truly incredible piece of architecture and craftsmanship.
These stories are so goddam amusing
Bishop's Castle has something to say about that "only castle" in North America claim: https://www.bishopcastle.org/
Disney's acquisition of over 100 square miles off a new highway in the middle of Florida without being found out is pretty revolutionary by my standards, tough to imagine that happening again anywhere in the US today.
Blackstone’s Hilton acquisition
https://orchidglobalmarkets.org/2020/09/03/hilton-lbo-by-blackstone/
Blackstone's acquisition of EOP
Be sure to give credit to Sam Zell on that one, BX was just the winning bidder (their "re-flip" of so much of the portfolio was cool on its own though).
The English Monarchy controlling large swaths of land in England still...and still getting paid rent every year.
In the same vein: Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase & the Dutch acquiring Manhattan from the Native Americans
If the natives still owned Manhattan, Manhattan would be a fucking joke
I phrased it a bit unclearly...think transformative deals....example Yankee stadium by Tishman (yes we know they messed up the aesthetics there but still the gist) or Related syndicating and executing on Hudson Yards.
For us to answer, we need to know why you think those are "transformative". Yankee Stadium already existed, almost on the exact site, so building a new one didn't "transform" anything. Hudson Yards is an impressive feat of engineering, but no more so than Battery Park City fifty years ago, or the transformation of Williamsburg over the last 15 years, or the rise of the Midtown supertall corridor.
Your definition of transformative seems to be "big development project," in which case every single sports arena/stadium or collection of large buildings seems to count.
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