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The basics:

• NAIOP New Jersey is a year into four-year strategic plan for CRE industry
• Focus includes advocacy, workforce development and public outreach
• Leadership aims to strengthen ties with higher education
• Plan seeks to position NAIOP as voice for all CRE asset classes

NAIOP, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association – NJ Chapter represents developers, investors and owners. One year into its four-year strategic plan, the organization is expanding its role beyond a trade group, emphasizing advocacy, workforce development and community engagement.

The undertaking follows Daniel Kennedy taking the helm in 2023, after the retirement of longtime leader Michael McGuiness. In 2025, when the strategic plan launched, Greek Real Estate Partners Managing Partner Matthew Schlindwein assumed the presidential post at the chapter.

The landscape shifted again in January, when Gov. Mikie Sherrill took office.

NJBIZ spoke with Kennedy and Schlindwein before inauguration day and ahead of the release of The Commercial Real Estate Development Association’s 2025 Annual Report. The leaders discussed the plan’s goals, how it differs from past approaches, and how the chapter is supporting members and the broader commercial real estate industry statewide.

NJBIZ: Why was the time right for a new strategic plan?

DAN KENNEDY: We got to rewind a little bit to start the story. As you know, Mike McGuiness retired after 27 years of distinguished service here as our CEO. And when I took the helm, I went through a process of doing a lot of listening … We brought in a consultant to do a proper organizational assessment … we got a great report of some areas where we needed to take some steps to ensure that the NAIOP New Jersey chapter in the future, could have the success it’s had in the past. … We also have a new generation of leaders coming into the chapter on our board. So, we had to make sure that we needed to make changes that the organization worked for the next generation of members and leaders.

Q: How is this different from past approaches?

KENNEDY: One of the things that’s different about the way we used to do it, is we used to do a game plan year to year … Many of the things we’re working on will transcend an annual calendar year. And we also wanted to overcome some of the things we heard from the organizational assessment, making sure that our advocacy voice got stronger on some of the topics that were really holding the industry back.

We wanted to make sure that we had an increased focus on our relationships with higher ed and workforce development, which really weren’t strong enough based on the input from our chapter members. And to make sure that the programs we were hosting and holding were topical and relevant. … It wasn’t a plan that had to be done to save the organization. We needed to sharpen things up, modernize operations so that we can focus on what was most important for our members.

Policy priorities

Q: You mentioned the new leadership and the new generation of leaders coming in as an impetus. Does the changing landscape within the state factor into this as well?

KENNEDY: We’ve gone from an organization that was focused on one or two asset classes to one that aspires to focus on the top four commercial real estate asset classes in the state. … We started as an organization over 50 years ago that was focused primarily, almost exclusively on office. And that’s not us anymore… Even now with the name change [due July 1]—we’ve outgrown our name. We’ve outgrown the brand of NAIOP. And now we have a game plan in place to really, fully take that position as an organization that represents all the interests of commercial real estate.

SCHLINDWEIN: One of the things that we’ve been incredibly happy with, with Dan taking the helm, is that fresh set of eyes towards the organization. And that probably would have been a good reason to necessitate the plan either way, the fact that now it kind of lines up with the new governor. … [W]ell before we knew the outcome of the election, we got way ahead of this, to create what we felt were NAIOP New Jersey’s priorities for the next governor.

Q: Are there any other specific policies that the organization is hopeful the new administration will revisit?

SCHLINDWEIN: One kind of huge success that the state I feel like has, and we’ve been involved in my day job and plenty of projects that probably would not be anywhere near as far along as they are if it wasn’t for this, was the state doing the site remediation reformat. And adopting the licensed site remediation professional program… I think that could really be expanded [to] … more programs outside of just site remediation. I mean, we have an entire land use program with the DEP [New Jersey Department of environmental Protection] that I think could use something similar as a model. And maybe even other departments, like the Department of Transportation is another one that we work with a lot. … So I think that’s one big one that just sticks out to me as low hanging fruit and an opportunity for the state to really grab a hold of that, recognize the huge successes that the programs had and apply it to other areas.

KENNEDY: I’ll pile on and talk a little bit about energy. We’re excited that the governor is going to be taking an aggressive and fresh look at the state’s energy policies. Energy had been more of an afterthought to our processes to get projects entitled and occupied, and that script has flipped upside down, where if you’re not thinking about energy early and often … you’re really going to be behind the eight ball toward the end of the project.

Whether it’s increasing energy production in the state, increasing transmission and then perhaps relooking about how the development community can partner with utilities to solve pinches and energy access … We expect that [Sherrill] will be a governor who still focuses on infrastructure and continues to accelerate investments around the port, around some major assets like Gateway will have certainly positive impacts for transit-centric development statewide.

We do think that there’s opportunities for them to streamline the process, just like a private development, public development needs to get permitted by the DEP. In fact, you could make even a stronger argument that the funding that’s around for public investment should be treated really as a finite resource that could be taken away, and we should do our best to see that design permitting and construction go forward in a really expeditious clip so that we can see the benefits from those investments.

[Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed six executive orders on her first day in office, targeting rising energy costs, permitting and regulatory processes, and more.]

Q: There’s a big focus on messaging and media as well as education in the plan.

KENNEDY: The point is to be able to be more direct and pointed in communicating to people, the general public, in ways that they absorb information. In the past, we had a lot of information in our private email system … So, utilizing social media is a really good way to get out there. You probably heard about the investment we’ve made both in terms of time and talent, from NAIOP members and other members of the logistics industry, in our Circulate New Jersey campaign. Where we’re trying to dispel myths and rumors with facts and data. And really trying to get to push back on some of the fact free environment that we have found ourselves in with the opposition to some of these real estate investments.

Q: You mentioned “defending ourselves with good data.” I wonder, do you see that kind of outreach as defensive or taking more of an offensive position?

SCHLINDWEIN: I think it’s a little bit of both. Part of it is being reactive to potentially one-sided information that portrays the picture of our industry in a very negative light, without considering all of the facts, sometimes.

But then another side of it is more on the … offensive, is just getting the highlights and the positives out there … so we can kind of toot our horn a little bit on just what does commercial real estate mean to the state’s revenues and the overall economy as a whole, which when you look at the number of people that it employs with the taxes that the properties and the people who are employed in the industry are paying toward the state, I mean, it’s huge. It’s a big needle mover, and I think sometimes that just gets overlooked. … I think just having the education be out there, and that also helps us be taken more seriously when we’re advocating for our positions.

KENNEDY: Matt nailed it. I would just add that we’ve also had a tremendous turnover in the Legislature. While a group of members of the Legislature understood this deeply for quite some time, there’s been a turnover of at least 50% in both houses. … And another area where we’ve basically been statewide, and the plan talks about – and I don’t think we’ve really fully hit gear on this yet – there’s been some really great investments made in our urban centers, which makes some of these key mayors really important to understand these facts as well. … We can’t work with 565 individual mayors. We don’t have that bandwidth, but we are going to be starting to target some mayors [referencing new leaders in Hoboken and Jersey City] and critical county executives and trying to bring this message to them as well in ways that we hadn’t before.

Q: You actually anticipated what I was going to ask, especially at events that I’ve been to, there’s an emphasis on conveying to developers and people within the industry about engaging at the local level, building those relationships. What does that look like in practice for you guys?

KENNEDY: In the last year or two we’ve really been emphasizing that. … I’m a trained land use planner. I sit on my local planning board and I was a former assistant commissioner at DEP. And I’ve experienced a wide range of developers looking for approvals in my career. Some are great at communication and telling the story. Others are not. … So we’re trying to bring some training to them.

That’s an example of, I think, an area where sometimes the trade association resources can be really helpful for individual companies to learn more about what other successful companies are doing. Same thing with people’s career … And I think NAIOP is an association … where somebody can start as a developing leader – like Matt did – and grow to become our chapter president and both his company and himself individually can really grow along the way.

Q: That was something that I was hoping that we could dig into. And Matt’s trajectory is such a great example. I was curious about the workforce development and mentorship facet. Is this coming from the industry? Is it just coming from within NAIOP? Is it more like a formalization of things that are already happening on their own?

SCHLINDWEIN: It’s not necessarily that it’s just not naturally happening. But I think recognizing that it is naturally happening, and this is a great place for it to happen. [NAIOP NJ] is already largely focused on education and networking. … Whether it’s mentor to mentee or peer to peer, I think it’s a big part of career development for all of the members. …

And I still remember going to that first meeting. It was the President Awards dinner. … Next thing you know I’m getting involved in the DL [developing leaders] committee. And I ran that committee for a while and then sat on a number of other committees. And then became a member of the board and officer. And then, ultimately, they asked me if I’d be willing to take on this role as president of the association, [and now] I’m giving the developing leader of the year award to somebody else at the award’s dinner 15 years later. But there’s a lot of stories like that, right? …

And then another great experience has also been not just the mentorship and the networking within New Jersey, but also on a national level. I’ve gotten involved in some of the national peer group forums and that has been fantastic because not only is it a group that I can bounce things off of … but it’s also like a kind of a fraternity of sorts of guys and girls that are kind of all in a similar life experience too.

KENNEDY: You’ll also notice in our plan that we’re trying to get better integrated with all the offerings of our national organization. … We had been running the New Jersey chapter a bit as kind of like a New Jersey Island… We’re also already starting to do more to promote those opportunities and the value of that membership. … An engaged member is more likely to renew and tell their friends that it’s a great organization …. The more members, the more attendees, the more sponsors, the more resources that we have available to help support, which I think makes NAIOP very different than other organizations that perhaps run an event around real estate where it’s kind of a private company and the money doesn’t go back into the industry.

The more we can grow the organization, the more successful we are, the more resources we can put in play to support the industry and then improve and increase our offerings at a good price.

Looking ahead

Q: Speaking about growing membership, that kind of focus on mentorship and on engaging with higher education, those initiatives beyond what they do on the face, that’s helping to build a pipeline for you guys as well?

KENNEDY: Yep, absolutely. Objectively, other NAIOP chapters have a stronger base of relationships with higher ed. The students within those programs become kind of a pipeline for them. And that’s not really a strength of our organization now. And that’s why we’re setting a strategic goal to improve that situation. And then also having those younger, newer voices in the organization will help us because there may be some trends and topics that they know a lot about that some of our more invested professionals may not have learned about or heard about or care a lot about. So, I think while there’s a ton of opportunities for younger people to learn from more industry legends, I think there’s also opportunities [for leaders to learn], especially around things like how to use AI in the workflow. …  If you don’t have the young people around to give back to, you’re missing half the equation.

#NAIOPNJ was thrilled to partner with @naiopNYC to host a #HappyHour for our #DevelopingLeaders. More than 60 DL members across both chapters came together in #Hoboken for a lovely evening of connection & insight. TY @RockGroup for #sponsoring event! pic.twitter.com/FnGtYwsGdc

— NAIOP New Jersey (@naiopnj) March 13, 2026

Q: How has membership responded to the plan so far?

KENNEDY: The thing about having it not be a year-to-year plan is that you aspire to get things done in a year and then the proverbial “stuff” happens, right? So, there’s some things that we will carry over to next year that weren’t fully realized in 2025, and then there’ll be new things we’ll be able to pick up because we’ve knocked some stuff off the list. And a big part of this next year is going to be about the brand transition and kind of fully growing into this new name.

But I think people vote with their feet. So I could say that in terms of membership, we’re growing our renewal cycles pretty substantially ahead of last year, new membership growth is ahead of last year at this time and our engagement’s been good, our attendance’s been good. People don’t have to attend, they don’t have to be members of NAIOP; it’s not like property taxes, right? So, we think that the biggest metric is involvement and commitment. And by that measure, it seems like folks have really embraced this strategy. They like some of the new locations and the new offerings. There had been a sense that things had gotten stale and I think we’ve corrected that.

Q: Looking ahead, what does success look like?

KENNEDY: On the fly, I’d want to say that any member of the commercial real estate industry would see value in being a member, not just a member of NAIOP, but actually contributing to NAIOP in terms of their time and talent. And that I would say broadly means also the industries that support commercial real estate, which includes having more of the legal engineering, construction services community, and also better relationships with our partners in labor as well.

SCHLINDWEIN: I think on a more global front, what success to me, and I don’t know if we’ll get there, but we can make steps to get there, would look like for the industry and for the state and the reputation of the state would be a place where doing business for commercial real estate isn’t necessarily easy, but has certainty. And what I mean by certainty is that if you’re willing to do all the hard work and follow all the rules, that you’ll be able to do business. …

it’s going to be a constant engagement, but I think just from a competitive nature of New Jersey versus other states, I think it would benefit New Jersey greatly if we could take steps towards our reputation being that business isn’t going to be easy, but at least it’s going to be.