Related California Announces New Market-Rate Residential Division to be Led by Greg Vilkin

Related California, the West Coast affiliate of Related Companies, announced that veteran real estate executive Greg Vilkin will join the company as president of Related California Urban Residential, a newly formed division, and as a member of the senior executive team.

Los Angeles—Related California, the West Coast affiliate of Related Companies, announced that veteran real estate executive Greg Vilkin will join the company as president of Related California Urban Residential, a newly formed division, and as a member of the senior executive team. In the newly created role, Vilkin will lead all of the firm’s market-rate and luxury residential development opportunities, both stand-alone and within mixed-use environments, throughout the state. Vilkin will officially join the firm on October 1.

Simultaneously, long-time Related California executive Frank Cardone was named president of Related California Affordable where he will continue to spearhead all of the firm’s affordable housing activities. Cardone also will continue to serve as chief operating officer of Related California.

Vilkin previously served as managing principal and president of MacFarlane Partners. He joins Related with more than 30 years of real estate investment, development and management experience, during which he has led teams that developed over $10 billion in residential, retail, hospitality, office and industrial properties, as well as master-planned communities, in markets throughout the United States. A nationally recognized authority on workforce housing, he has worked extensively in developing communities and revitalizing urban neighborhoods through public/private partnerships.

Vilkin previously worked in various capacities for Forest City Enterprises, a publicly held real estate operating and development company with assets nationwide. For more than 10 years, he served as president of Forest City’s real estate businesses that operated in the western U.S.—Forest City Residential West and Forest City Stapleton. The two businesses developed and owned a wide range of properties, including high-density apartments and condominiums, office buildings, retail centers and large-scale mixed-use projects.

Under his leadership, Forest City Stapleton undertook the nation’s largest urban redevelopment project, working in a public/private partnership to transform the former Stapleton International Airport in Denver into a master-planned community consisting of more than 12,000 homes and 10 million square feet of commercial and retail space. Vilkin serves on the board of directors of the Center for Creative Land Recycling and the Multifamily Leadership Board of the National Association of Home Builders. He also is a member of the Urban Land Institute, the Congress for the New Urbanism and the Young Presidents’ Organization. He holds a B.A. in Finance from California State University at Northridge.

Cardone will oversee all operations and development activities for Related California Affordable with responsibilities that encompass all aspects of the development and redevelopment process. He has been with Related for nearly 20 years, playing a critical role in building and leading the firm’s affordable housing business. Prior to joining Related California in 1995, Cardone was a senior project manager for M. David Paul & Associates, a Santa Monica-based residential and commercial developer. Cardone has also worked as a development project manager/vice president for Calmark Development Corporation, a developer of multifamily housing. He holds a master’s degree in Civil Engineering from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Loyola Marymount University.