QA Carl Goldberg Industry veteran isn’t planning his retirement, he’s planning his next bold move in the business

As a co-founder and partner of Roseland Property Co., Carl Goldberg has spent 20 years shaping luxury residential development in New Jersey and across the region.
But he’s now focused on his next chapter in commercial real estate.Two years after Roseland was acquired by Mack-Cali Realty Corp. — in the REIT’s high-profile move into the multifamily space — Goldberg is leaving to start a new firm known as Canoe Brook Management LLC. He will be joined by his daughter, Devra, and fellow Roseland co-founder Brad Klatt, with a focus on consulting in Weehawken, Morristown and other towns where the multifamily builder has made its mark over the years.

With that in mind, Goldberg, No. 30 on our list, spoke to NJBIZ recently about his career in New Jersey real estate and what the future holds.

NJBIZ: Your new firm will continue to work with Mack-Cali. On a personal and professional level, why was it important to you to do that even after your departure?

Carl Goldberg: Obviously I feel a loyalty to Mack-Cali because the transaction that led to the sale of the Roseland Property Co. assets to Mack-Cali was done on a very friendly, personal basis. So I think it’s important in a real way, but also psychologically — they’re kind of your kids, so even when your kids leave home, you want to make sure that they’re doing well. And I have the utmost respect and admiration for (Mack-Cali CEO) Mitchell Hersh, and I see that it’s critical to both our interests for he and I to work together for the continuation of the value that the Roseland family of assets can bring to Mack-Cali and Mack-Cali’s shareholders.

That’s why the negotiation that led up my leaving Roseland/Mack-Cali was done on such a warm basis. So it’s really been a good situation.

NJBIZ: Your separation agreement also allows you to work with other clients. Tell us about that.

CB: I’ve been involved in New Jersey real estate now since 1976, so I’m hopeful that some of the people (in the industry) will see that there’s some value, that myself and Devra can add to their organization and to assist in maximizing the value of their real estate portfolio — whether it’s in securing permits and approvals or helping them with access to certain state incentive programs to facilitate their development projects. … But I’m very cognizant of wanting to do that in a way that continues to be both positive for Roseland and positive for Mack-Cali.

NJBIZ: What are you looking forward to when it comes to working with your daughter and passing on your knowledge and experience?

CB: It’s always a dream for a parent to be able to work with one of their kids in business. My daughter has been at Roseland since 2008, and we’ve got to work on a lot of things together. She’s become very involved in the New Jersey Builders Association, especially their mixed-use affiliate entity. And she’s been the person at Roseland that has worked on our behalf with some of the state incentive grant programs, so I think she’s developed her own area of expertise and her own networking group. So I think it’s really exciting at this point in my career to be able to work with my daughter and to combine our disparate talents into something where we can provide some hopefully quality services to our clients.

She’s a good networker in her own right. I always like to think I’ve been reasonably good at cultivating relationships within the industry, and I think in that regard, we’re kind of similar.

I think it will be a lot of fun. And that’s the other thing — I’m 64 now. You get to a certain part of your career and you don’t have the same financial pressures necessarily as you did earlier in your career, so you want to do things that are both intellectually stimulating and enjoyable. I always say when you wake up in the morning and you look at the appointments on your calendar, you want to see the names of people who you enjoy spending time with. So I’m looking forward to being able to do that in our new venture.

NJBIZ: Will you do other things besides consulting?

CB: I think we’ll be able to do other things, as well. But for the initial portion of the business, because there were a series of assets that were not part of the sale to Mack-Cali from the original Roseland portfolio that still need to be managed and attended to, we’ll be doing that not only in New Jersey. Some of those assets are outside of New Jersey as well.

But we will devote a significant amount of our time to real estate consulting.

I’m going to be devoting a significant amount of my time with my co-chair, Jim Hanson, to enhancing the platform of Rutgers University’s Center for Real Estate Studies. And I hope to be able to recruit some of my colleagues from New Jersey’s real estate industry into an organization that will allow the Center for Real Estate Studies to achieve its full potential in terms of delivering a quality education in real estate science to both undergraduate and graduate students at Rutgers.

And I actually hope to be able to teach a course, maybe as soon as the fall of 2015.

NJBIZ: You also spent a decade as board chairman of the New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority. What are your signature moments or proudest accomplishments, whether it’s in the real estate industry or with the NJSEA?

CB: I think at the sports authority it was working with the Jets and Giants to create probably the best private investment stadium in the country. I always recognize that New Jersey continuing to be the home for the Jets and the Giants was important for a lot of reasons, both tangibly and psychologically. People love the franchises, as they should. And I think by building that new facility at the sports complex, ensuring that both teams will be there for the foreseeable future, I think that was my signature moment at the sports complex.

And clearly at Roseland Property Co., to have the opportunity to be involved at an early stage in the development of the Hudson River waterfront with Port Imperial (in Weehawken and West New York). And hopefully people see Port Imperial as a great example of urban infill redevelopment, and all that means to the host communities and the tax bases of those communities. I think that’s a tangible result of what Roseland has accomplished that will last for many, many decades. I think if you spoke to people in both municipalities, they would share that opinion.