“After working on large-scale projects in cities in Israel and Europe, I arrived back in the United States, where I joined with a partner already based there to start a real estate development company focused on revitalizing small towns with new Class A multi-family projects in the Midwest. The small-town mindset was a challenge from the start. Proposing modernist architectural design in towns that hadn't seen any new residential design in years — used to traditional gabled roofs and dormers — took some time. The good news: they came to love it, starting the market trend.”
“Towns like South Bend, Indiana — home of Notre Dame University, 90 miles from Chicago — and its sister city Mishawaka invited us to make proposals for city-owned land, interested in regenerating their town centers and main streets. After meeting with the planning department and the mayor's office leading the revitalization charge, we chose two sites — one in each town — and I prepared design proposals. Mishawaka awarded us the property across the river from their town center at a discounted price and contributed infrastructure and tax abatements as support.”
“When we spoke with the local developers, banks, professionals and people living in these towns, they thought we were missing the plot proposing to develop downtown. Like many American towns, the cores had been abandoned for the outskirts and suburbs. But I saw the potential: a beautiful building on the edge defining the core, walking distance across a bridge over the St. Joseph River with a park on the other side bordering the shops and restaurants that would come alive with the 200 new residents in our building. No new residential building had been built in the area for twenty years. Today, twelve years later, there are approximately 500 apartment units, retail, coffee shops and restaurants in downtown Mishawaka. In 2024 the City and Police Department relocated there into a newly renovated and expanded office building.”
“Seventy-three one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments on a raised precast-concrete podium with a public courtyard between the two wings; on-grade parking, retail, offices, fitness and community space below. As the market matured and young professionals and students moved in, we added nine studio apartments.”
“Covid took a toll on the project — two years to recover from. At that point I wanted to move on from the Midwest (I'd intended three to four years, not eight); given the other projects we'd developed, the partnership agreed it was time to sell our portfolio. In September 2022 we sold River Rock. In 2025 the new owners, due to its design and standard, decided to repurpose select portions into condominiums — given the maturity of the market we initiated thirteen years earlier.”
The instinct held. The first building came out of the ground.
Two buildings on a raised precast-concrete podium, a public courtyard between the wings, the riverfront balconies looking out over the St. Joseph River.
From an abandoned site downtown, the whole curve was visible to me from the beginning.