Howard J. Samuels – President
Howard J. Samuels, founder of Samuels & Company, Inc., has over twenty-eight years of experience in all aspects of the real estate industry in various corporate and entrepreneurial positions. For the past few years, Mr. Samuels has served as the principal developer of a power/community center in Riverside and an urban mixed-use project in Los Angeles, as well as provided advisory, consulting, and brokerage services to selected owners/developers, institutions and tenants in assignments involving the development, planning, entitlement, acquisition and disposition of commercial and residential real estate assets.
In addition to his activities with Samuels & Company, Inc., Mr. Samuels served as Senior Vice President and National Director for Retail Development of LCOR Public/Private, Inc. From 1998 to 2000, Mr. Samuels was the Managing Director of the Southern California office, and oversaw all aspects of planning, design, entitlements, development and acquisition of projects throughout the southwestern region of the country.
Previously, from 1995 though 1998, Mr. Samuels was Senior Executive Vice President for The Mills Corporation, which is a fully integrated publicly held real estate company that develops, leases and manages super-regional value oriented mega-malls (known as Mills), as well as community shopping centers. Mr. Samuels directed anchor leasing and managed peripheral land sales at existing Mills, as well as at the new Mills developments in Ontario, CA; Dallas, TX; Phoenix, AZ; and Orange, CA.
From 1982 through 1995, Mr. Samuels was a senior executive with Kornwasser & Friedman (“K & F”) and its related entities, including The Price Company and the Price REIT. While at K&F, Mr. Samuels was in charge of the development of power/community shopping centers nationwide totaling approximately 4.5 million square feet in 16 projects. Mr. Samuels was specifically involved in land acquisition, master planning, obtaining governmental entitlements, developing infrastructure improvements and managing the design, development and construction for each project.
Mr. Samuels’ extensive private real estate development experience is coupled with his experience in the public sector. Prior to his experience at K&F, Mr. Samuels served as an Economist for Mayor Bradley, as well as the Executive Director of the Los Angeles City Commission to Vitalize Fairfax. As a recipient of a Rotary International Fellowship, Mr. Samuels studied in Hong Kong and was a Financial Analyst assisting in the management of the North American Investment Program for the Hong Kong Land Company.
Mr. Samuels has broad based community and civic affiliations in Los Angeles. He served as President and a member of the Board of Directors of Alternative Living for the Aging for 3 and 20 years, respectively, which included the development of over 100 units of senior multi-family housing and is presently on the Board of Trustees. Mr. Samuels also served as Treasurer of the Board of Directors for the Crippled Children’s Society; as well as a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization and the Urban Task Force to Rebuild LA.
Mr. Samuels has spoken on various panels including the ULI, ICSC, the National Council for Urban Economic Development, the Entertainment Real Estate Forum, and the Deloitte & Touche Annual Conference. He has also lectured at the Ziman Center for Real Estate (part of the UCLA Anderson school of Management), the MIT Center for Real Estate Development and at the University of Southern California.
Mr. Samuels earned his B.A., magna cum laude from University of California, Los Angeles and his M.A. in Public Administration with an emphasis in Public Finance from the University of Southern California. Mr. Samuels also studied at University of Hong Kong in Urban Economics/International Finance.
