No. 5: John Saraceno

John Saraceno is co-founder and managing principal of Onyx Equities LLC. Since founding in 2004 with partner Jonathan Schultz, Onyx has acquired more than $3 billion worth of real estate assets throughout New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut and executed over $400 million in asset repositioning projects across all property types.

In addition, he oversees Onyx’s investment fund arm, which has historically and continues to generate fund-level returns in excess of 25 percent. Onyx is currently working on a revamp of the Gateway Center in Newark, introducing modern sanitizing technology and opening the project to the city’s streets. The office and retail complex sits in the center of the city’s commercial district adjacent to Newark Penn Station and was originally oriented indoors. Other notable Saraceno deals include the acquisition of a Mack-Cali Bergen County portfolio and 30 Montgomery St. in Jersey City.

The firm remains active in the metropolitan area despite the pandemic.

“Post-9/11 there was a significant migration out of New York City, there was a tremendous safety concern about living there and working there and justifiably so. But what happened was a year later, there was this migration back into New York and those that left quickly and abandoned their space or abandoned their leasehold positions were forced to find themselves trying to get back in at a more costly enterprise than they were when they left,” Saraceno said in discussing how COVID-19 is affecting the office market. “That’s not so long ago and it’s not so far outside of our memory that people are taking a more cautious approach.”