When Abraham Cooper left JLL in January 2020 to launch Polly Park Capital, the world shut down within weeks. He saw it as an opening. By summer, he had financed Hudson Heritage, a $65 million construction loan for a ShopRite-anchored mixed-use community in upstate New York and one of the few retail construction loans to close anywhere in the country during the pandemic.

Polly Park was built as a merchant bank with two business lines. On the advisory side, Abraham has placed capital for transactions ranging from a $360 million construction financing for a senior living community in Tysons Corner to a $75 million programmatic joint venture for a Wilmington-based operator scaling to 10,000 units. On the principal side, he co-invests alongside local operators on ground-up development, anchored by a high-net-worth partner and focused on the New York tri-state and South Florida.

In this episode of The Dealmakers' Edge, Aaron Strauss and Abraham Cooper discuss how Polly Park's merchant banking and co-GP businesses work together, why he targets East Coast coastal cities where capital and tenancy understand the product, how he vets operating partners on co-GP deals, and the grounding that keeps him steady through the stress of dealmaking.

1:16 - Polly Park Capital and the merchant bank model

1:50 - Starting at CBRE and moving to JLL capital markets

2:16 - Launching Polly Park in 2020 and seeing the pandemic as an opportunity

2:50 - Financing Hudson Heritage during the pandemic

3:28 - How brokerage experience at CBRE and JLL shaped the principal mindset

6:47 - Having $200 million of advisory runway going into the pandemic

7:55 - Splitting time between merchant banking and co-GP investing

8:42 - Range of advisory transactions from Tysons Corner to Nashville to Wilmington

9:59 - Vetting local operators and structuring co-GP deals

11:34 - Targeting East Coast coastal cities where capital and tenancy understand the product

12:28 - Equanimity and grounding through the stress of dealmaking

15:00 - Reading the market and why better days are ahead

16:52 - Scaling from high-net-worth to institutional capital

18:39 - Using AI to augment, not replace, human underwriting

20:22 - Sticking to core markets and what's exciting ahead

Mentioned In Building a Raising Capital and Co-GP Investing with Abraham Cooper

Polly Park Capital | LinkedIn

Abraham Cooper on LinkedIn

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