Creating Access and Opportunity in Equity Investing

We asked ourselves, how can we extend this commitment to our capital raising? How can we increase diversity among our partners and offer wealth generating opportunities for underrepresented groups? It starts by incorporating a formal commitment into project proposals from their very inception. For instance, when we started discussing the Enterprise Research Campus (“ERC”) – an exciting new mixed-use project – with the Harvard Allston Land Company ("HALC"), we agreed that sourcing part of the equity from minority investors was a point of utmost importance for both Tishman Speyer and HALC.

The second step was setting concrete goals. As part of our partnership agreement, we committed to a specific target in sourcing the project’s equity from minority investors. This further motivated the firm to continue to seek and develop new investor relationships. Tishman Speyer has now become the first to deliver on such a commitment to raise capital at this scale from minority investors, surpassing our initial goal. We raised over $30 million from more than 150 individual Black and Latinx investors. This is the largest inclusionary investor initiative (total dollars) for private development in the history of Boston.

Incorporating diverse capital will be a cornerstone of our projects going forward. We view our developments as opportunities to help create wealth for businesses and individuals in the communities in which we do business. Creating access is a priority for the firm, and this is just the start of something much greater.