2019 MSRED Alumni Gala

Please join fellow alumni and industry leaders for an evening of celebration at the 2019 Columbia University MSRED Alumni Gala.

This year’s gala will honor, Nicholas Bienstock ‘92 MSRED ‘96BUS and Christopher Schlank ‘92 MSRED, Co-Managing Partners of Savanna, as the Recipients of the 2019 Distinguished Alumnus Award. The event will feature remarks by Bienstock and Schlank, along with Dean Amale Andraos and Patrice Derrington, Holliday Associate Professor of the Real Estate Development and Director of the MSRED Program. Proceeds from the evening will support the MSRED Program Fund.

The attire for the evening is black tie optional.

TABLES
$15,000: Benefactor
$10,000: Industry Leader
$5,000: Deal Maker

INDIVIDUAL TICKETS
$1,000: Sponsor
$500: Individual Ticket
RECENT GRADUATE & CURRENT STUDENT
$250: One Ticket to Gala dinner for a member of the Class of 2017, 2018, and 2019

Formal registration form here.
Purchase an individual ticket online here by selecting “RED Gala”.

Kindly reserve your ticket by May 1st to be included in the e-journal for the evening.

For additional information about the evening please contact Jillian.Kincaid@columbia.edu.

About the evening’s honorees.

Nicholas Bienstock
Co-Managing Partner

Mr. Bienstock is the Co-Managing Partner of Savanna. At Savanna, Mr. Bienstock has developed relationships with institutional lenders, third-party capital partners, and fund investors as well as identified acquisitions and structured transactions. Mr. Bienstock has worked on the acquisition, financing, redevelopment, restructuring and sale of over $5 billion of real estate throughout the United States. Mr. Bienstock sits on the investment committee and supervises the ongoing marketing and leasing of Savanna’s investments. Prior to joining Savanna in 1998, Mr. Bienstock worked at Capital Trust, Inc. in New York where he worked on a wide variety of real estate principal investment and advisory transactions, including the purchase of equity interests in various properties, the negotiation and structuring of mezzanine loans, single asset and portfolio sales, asset management, debt and equity private placements and REIT IPO advisory work. Prior to Capital Trust, Mr. Bienstock worked for Chemical Bank’s Real Estate Investment Banking Group. Mr. Bienstock received an MBA from the Columbia Business School, an MS in Real Estate Development from the Columbia School of Architecture and a BA from Harvard College where he graduated cum laude. Mr. Bienstock has served as an Assistant Adjunct Professor at Columbia University where he taught case studies in Real Estate Finance to graduate students in the Columbia Architecture School’s Real Estate Master’s Degree Program and at the Columbia Business School. Mr. Bienstock also serves on the Advisory Board of The Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate at The Columbia Business School, and on the Board of Trustees at The Brearley School, where his daughter attends school.

Christopher Schlank
Founder, Co-Managing Partner

Mr. Schlank is a Founder and Managing Partner of Savanna. At Savanna, Mr. Schlank sits on the investment committee and is in charge of construction and redevelopment and shares responsibilities for asset management, sales and marketing and acquisitions. Mr. Schlank has overseen the acquisition and redevelopment of more than 70 real estate assets, comprising over 20 million square feet of space and nearly $3.8 billion of total capitalization, including raw land development sites, apartments, office buildings, industrial to residential conversions, retail and warehouse/distribution properties. Prior to founding Savanna, Mr. Schlank was a project manager for the Westside Federation for Senior Housing, a New York-based developer of low-income housing. Mr. Schlank received an MS in Real Estate Development from the Columbia School of Architecture and a BA in Urban Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Schlank is an Assistant Adjunct Professor at Columbia University where he teaches a seminar in Real Estate Finance to graduate students in the Columbia Architecture School’s Real Estate Master’s Degree Program.

For more information about previous honorees, please click here.