New real estate director moves in

Vishaan Chakrabarti is moving in to head Columbia’s real estate development program, the University announced on Wednesday.

Joining the array of new faces at Columbia this year, Chakrabarti is a triple-threat architect, city planner, and developer who will become the first ever full-time director of the real estate program at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. This hiring is a step toward a major, comprehensive expansion of the real estate program.

In his new role, Chakrabarti will be responsible for overseeing the program’s new three-semester curriculum and hopes to enhance career service offerings, integrate his department more deeply into the school’s fabric, raise capital for new program facilities, and hire the program’s second full-time faculty spot—the Paul Milstein Professor of Urban Development. Chakrabarti’s post is the real estate development program’s first endowed professorship, funded entirely by 1990 alumnus Marc Holliday.

In an interview, Chakrabarti said he seeks to create a platform for meaningful and productive local, national, and international discussion on the most pressing issues of modern real estate.
“Locally, we need more pro-growth and pro-change. Anti-growth sentiment has gotten pretty extreme, and we need a voice for smart growth in the city,” he said. Chakrabarti also noted the merits of expansion for institutions of higher education—a stance relevant to debate over the Manhattanville campus.

Chakrabarti added that he aims to train future international developers to do work in regions that he thinks are currently victimized by unchecked and unhealthy development. “It is really the number one issue we face as a planet,” he said.

According to Dean Mark Wigley, “The simplest way to say it is that he is really a visionary—someone who grasps all dimensions of the future of our city.” He said that “The city is shaped by so many different forces that don’t talk to each other,” but that the appointment of Chakrabarti is the “most crucial step” in expanding the program so that key figures can come together and use the school as a venue for progress.

Chakrabarti is leaving behind his post as executive vice president of design and planning at Related Companies—a developing, managing, and financing company—to take on his new job in Morningside Heights.

He served as director of New York City’s Department of City Planning for three years starting in 2002, during which time he played a role in the redevelopment of Manhattan’s Far West Side and Hudson Yards, as well as the recent High Line railway makeover into a public park. He is also currently working on redeveloping Penn Station in Midtown—a project he will not give up while settling into his new role uptown.

Professor Michael Buckley—who previously directed the real estate program—said, “We are moving forward in a whole new direction. I built this program up for 11 years, and I am glad he is going to be building on top of that platform.” Buckley said he would continue to teach in a limited capacity in the department after stepping down as director.

“This is very big and ambitious,” Chakrabarti said of the future. “And I’m very excited about it.”

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