Australia-based Lendlease is undergoing a massive transformation as part of a global corporate restructuring effort and a significant shift in its U.S. business model. Last year, the company sold its New York-based third-party construction management arm—the legacy Lehrer McGovern Bovis business it first acquired in 1999—to Consigli Building Group. But Lendlease is staying on the New York map, primarily in development and real estate investment management, with a slate of notable projects on its plate in the U.S. and regionally that have earned it recognition as the 2025 ENR New York Owner of the Year.

With a specialty in multifamily residential rental and life science office projects and a laser focus on sustainable development, Lendlease is wrapping up three major U.S. projects this year, including the 788,000-sq-ft Riverie, a full-block residential and retail development on the East River in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section.

The firm also recently completed the 354,000-sq-ft Claremont Hall residential and academic complex in Manhattan’s Morningside Heights neighborhood. Meg Spriggs, Lendlease managing director of development for the Americas, outlined the project roster the firm is working through as well as its future U.S. development plans.

The all-electric tower crane used on Claremont Hall was part of Lendlease’s initiative to employ green technologies on the jobsite, including use of non-diesel construction equipment.
Photo courtesy Lendlease

What’s the outlook for New York area development?

Meg Spriggs

New York has always been, and will continue to be, a strong market for real estate development. We’ve got a strong economic base, we’ve got cultural and educational institutions and we are an incredibly resilient city and region.

What’s most encouraging over the last year and into this year is the demand for office space that’s really gotten back to pre-pandemic levels, which we all feel on the sidewalk. We’re also excited about job creation and, of course, even more aggressive return-to-office mandates than we’ve seen, and we continue to have a significant lack of housing supply. In addition to high interest rates and high home prices, we believe that [all these factors] will actually help boost multifamily [residential] development.

It’s very encouraging to see all the advancements that the city has made through various policy initiatives and incentives, such as the City of Yes [new affordable housing rezoning plan] and the extension of the 421(a) tax credit and the new 485-X [affordable neighborhood tax incentive program]. It’s really those types of incentives that will ensure that New York remains competitive and attractive for [development] and for investors.
 

Where will you focus development efforts?

Our mandate here in the U.S. is housing—primarily multifamily, although we do have some condo buildings in our pipeline—and life sciences offices. Currently, we’re in execution mode on the three large projects, including the Riverie, formerly known as One Java, in Brooklyn, a big multifamily development [with two towers and a row of townhouses]; our project in Los Angeles that’s a combination of creative office and multifamily and retail on the ground floor; and a life sciences project of about 350,000 square feet in Boston that we just completed.

At the Riverie, we will be ready to occupy by the end of the year. In Culver City in Los Angeles, the multifamily units will be available in Q1 of next year, as well as the office space. And in Boston, we’re leasing right now – we got our [certificate of occupancy] last month.

Have operations and/or development changed since selling your construction arm?

We’re able to operate in the same way. We have made no significant changes to the team. The main focus is delivering these three developments successfully—they’re quite large projects. We’re in execution mode, so we’re not focused on the future pipeline at this point.

However, the company has been clear that we are interested in growing our investment management platform. We were a co-general partner on Claremont Hall. We are the primary sponsor on the Riverie. We do take equity in all instances, so we have equity partners or limited partners in everything we do.

Sustainability is the thread that goes through everything. It continues to be a core tenet of our development mandate. Riverie is all-electric and also has geothermal. Our life sciences building in Boston is also all-electric—that’s not super-common for life sciences buildings, as you can imagine. And Culver City is also all-electric.

We used lower-carbon concrete in all of those assets. And our use of solar panels in Culver City allowed us to qualify for C-Pace financing for [half of] what was a very large loan, $315 million. That was only attainable for us because of the carbon emission fundamentals that we were able to achieve with the building design. So, that’s quite exciting, especially for residential, where we’re finally able to enhance value through the financing structure.

Under construction along the Greenpoint waterfront in Brooklyn, the Riverie is an 834-unit residential community developed by Lendlease and joint venture partner Aware Super.
Photo courtesy Lendlease

What project are you most proud of?

We completed Claremont Hall in the first half of last year, which is a 41-story development in Morningside Heights, in partnership with the Union Theological Seminary campus.

We’re proud of how well-integrated the property is into the neighborhood. The seminary and some of the surrounding institutions in the area were Gothic Revival in design—very old, very unique. The team at [Robert A.M. Stern Architects] was really able to deliver this brand new building that looks like it’s been there for a long time.

This was a way to enhance the value of the campus.

At the Riverie – we are heating and cooling the project with geothermal power, which is very exciting because we believe it’s the largest geothermal project in the state of New York. And it’s 834 units, and about 250 of those units, are affordable. We also are right adjacent, with immediate access, to the India Street Pier, a ferry-operated pier, and we’ve created a public waterfront that will connect the East River to the project.