Expertise and experience aligned with your goals

Charles has over four decades of experience as a negotiator, project manager and lawyer representing the public and private sector in the development, entitlement and implementation of complex and politically sensitive, real estate projects. His unique skills have enabled him to move large and complex public and private real estate projects from the conceptual stage, through deal negotiation, stakeholder outreach, entitlement, financing and commissioning.

Until its sale to Blackstone in October 2018, he was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Gramercy Property Trust (NYSE symbol: GPT), a real estate investment trust with $7.6 Billion in enterprise value and 81 million square feet of office and industrial properties in major markets throughout the U.S. and Europe. Through 2002, Charles chaired the real estate department in a national law firm where he specialized in real estate development and finance. From 2002 through 2006, Charles was President of the San Diego Padres and then Executive Vice-President of JMI Realty where he led the PETCO Park development team guiding the development, financing and construction of one of America’s finest major league ballparks and the surrounding 26-block Ballpark District. In that role, he negotiated the transaction with the City of San Diego, led the public outreach for the project, secured the Padres’ financing, led the design and construction of the Ballpark through its on-time and on-budget completion in February 2004. He then entitled and developed nearly 4 million square feet of private development in the surrounding Ballpark District (Ballpark Village Master Plan) through 2006. The $3 Billion Ballpark District Redevelopment has been recognized as one of the most successful redevelopment projects in the country.

Following his work on Petco Park, he served as the senior executive in The Irvine Company’s San Diego Region, responsible for all of the company’s assets in San Diego County. In 2009, Charles served as the San Diego Unified Port District’s lead negotiator and project manager of the Chula Vista Bayfront Master Plan where he forged a unique alliance among public agencies, private developers, environmental advocates and organized labor, allowing the proposed the 536-acre Chula Vista Bayfront project to proceed to development and construction. From 2009 through 2010, he served as lead negotiator and project manager for San Diego’s Civic Center Redevelopment Project. In 2010, he became project manager for the San Diego Convention Center Phase III Expansion where he guided the design, entitlement and financing of the $520,000,000 project. He also served as the City of Anaheim’s lead negotiator on the Los Angeles Angels’ lease renewal and the City of Escondido’s lead negotiator for its proposed $50 Million Minor League Ballpark. Through May, 2017, he served as Chief Executive Officer of Metropolitan Airpark LLC, the developer of 309 acres owned by the City of San Diego at Brown Field, a reliever airport near the US/Mexican border, approved for nearly 3 million square feet of new, mixed-use and airport-related development.