Jerry Rappaport Jr. Joins Ed Zuker of Chestnut Hill Realty to Create CHR Investors

Boston—Jerome L. “Jerry” Rappaport Jr. has joined with Chestnut Hill Realty CEO Ed Zuker and his son, Robert Zuker, to found CHR Investors, an affiliate of Chestnut Hill Realty that will focus on real estate investment primarily in New England’s multifamily housing sector. Rappaport will serve as managing director of CHR Investors. Chestnut Hill Realty is a full-service real estate company with a 43-year track record of developing, owning and operating apartment communities.

For the past two years, Rappaport has been consulting with Chestnut Hill Realty to help develop a strategic plan and research various capitalization options to continue sustainable growth. He also has assisted the development group at Chestnut Hill Realty, which has completed over $40 million in development and redevelopment projects, with another $100 million planned.

As managing director of CHR Investors, Rappaport will work with the Chestnut Hill Realty acquisitions team to identify strategic growth opportunities and pursue off-market investment targets.

Rappaport and CHR Investors will also be reaching out to various institutional and multifamily RIA investors, offering them an opportunity to participate in Chestnut Hill Realty’s multifamily property acquisitions.

Rappaport brings 30 years of real estate investment, development and fund management experience to CHR Investors. He co-found New Boston Fund in 1992, and over the next 18 years, established one of the most nimble and innovative real estate investment firms in the country. Under his leadership, New Boston created eight real estate equity funds that raised more than $1 billion in discretionary equity. New Boston used this equity to build and acquire $4 billion worth of assets comprising 20 million square feet of commercial property and over 7,000 housing units.

At the core of New Boston Fund’s success was Rappaport’s longstanding commitment to operate with integrity and to help support the communities where the firm invested. His adherence to those principles was embodied in New Boston’s $200 million Urban Strategy America (USA) Fund, which executed on the promise of a three-pronged bottom line—generating solid returns to investors, spurring economic development and workforce housing, and promoting environmental sustainability.

Rappaport’s passion for real estate and urban revitalization began in the early 1980s as director of development at Halcyon Ltd. in Hartford, Conn. There he managed a number of economic development and district redevelopment projects, including the redevelopment of Hartford’s Union Station. During this time, he also served as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Urban Development Action Grant program. In 1989, he joined Charles River Properties in Boston as senior vice president for acquisitions and finance, where he oversaw the purchase of over 500 apartment units in Texas.

Rappaport, who has a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Harvard College, is a long-term visiting lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government and a founding member of the International Advisory Board of the Harvard Real Estate Academic Initiative. He is also a founding co-chairman of the Commonwealth Housing Taskforce and past president of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board.