When you talk about longevity and impact in American real estate, few names carry the weight of Ray Garfield. From flying jets for the U.S. Navy to restructuring billion-dollar companies and advising the Rockefellers, Ray’s six-decade career has crossed every frontier of commercial real estate, finance, syndication, capital markets, and public infrastructure.

He’s seen every cycle since the 1970s, from 18% mortgage rates to the birth of CMBS and the rise of public-private partnerships. He’s led billion-dollar restructurings, sold companies to Merrill Lynch and Syntex, and helped pioneer modern design-build and tax-exempt financing models that have reshaped how America builds courthouses, hotels, and convention centers.

In this episode of The Real Finds Podcast, host Gordon Lamphere sits down with Garfield to unpack:

- How a former naval aviator went from Dallas land syndications to underwriting the first commercial mortgage securities on Wall Street.

- The inside story of rescuing Vista Properties from bankruptcy and turning $1.5 billion in losses into strategic leverage.

- Why design-build-finance revolutionized how Turner Construction and other giants win public-sector deals.

- How Garfield Public Private became the quiet force behind hundreds of millions in city, county, and state projects nationwide.

- The future of public infrastructure, real estate finance, and AI in underwriting—from one of the few people who has successfully bridged Wall Street, Main Street, and City Hall.

Ray Garfield’s story isn’t just about success: it’s about resilience, reinvention, and the kind of decades-long excellence that defines what a real estate career can look like when purpose meets precision.

If you’ve ever wondered how great developers think, how billion-dollar public projects actually get financed, or how to build trust between the private and public sectors. This is the masterclass.

🔗 Watch the full episode on The Real Finds Podcast with Gordon Lamphere.

🎧 Available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

For more from our team of Chicago commercial real estate agents 🔗

Downtown office vacancy is stuck near record highs. O’Hare and Elk Grove industrial areas can’t build fast enough. Suburban landlords are dangling a year of free rent just to keep tenants, while industrial outdoor storage, basically fenced asphalt, is suddenly a $200 billion institutional asset class.

In this solo breakdown, Gordon Lamphere, broker of 100+ Chicagoland deals a year, unpacks the narratives that don’t line up and shows you where the real opportunities are hiding. From office conversions downtown to scarcity-driven industrial in Elk Grove to IOS and infill redevelopment, Gordon walks you through what’s really happening on the ground in Q3 2025.

But this isn’t just another market update. It’s a perspective grounded in the legacy and deal flow of Van Vlissingen & Co.

Reach Our Team of Commercial Real Estate Agents In Chicago: https://www.vvco.com/commercial-real-estate-agent-in-chicago/

Why listen to Gordon’s Team?

- 145 years of heritage. Founded in 1879, Van Vlissingen is one of America’s oldest continuously operating CRE firms. Longevity backed by execution.

- 100+ transactions a year. Gordon and his team aren’t speculating. They’re in the middle of the market daily, across office, industrial, land, and redevelopment.

- Boutique focus + broad reach. High-touch advisory paired with a proprietary marketing engine that reaches 50,000+ investors, developers, and occupiers.

- Actionable insights. On The Real Finds Podcast, Gordon brings clarity to complex deals, distilling market noise into investor-ready takeaways.

Key Topics This Episode Covers

- Office: CBD vacancy ~27% → LaSalle conversions (1,700+ units planned; 349 at 30 N. LaSalle) mean it’s a land play, not a rent recovery.

- O’Hare/Elk Grove industrial: Vacancy under 2%. Power infrastructure (ComEd’s 260 MW substation) + $8.5B O’Hare modernization = gold-plated stability.

- Suburban office: Oak Brook holds, North Suburbs slip. B/C stock is essentially covered land.

- Lake County: $1.78B investment since 2021, 4,000 new jobs → execution-friendly growth node.

- Multifamily: Pipeline cresting in ’25 → firmer rents into ’26/’27. - IOS: Now a $200B institutionalized niche. Scarce, sticky, premium-priced.

- Redevelopment: The real long-term value. From Allstate’s Glenview campus to LaSalle Street, less invasive, community-compatible plays win approvals and value.

The Takeaway

Chicago’s CRE market is splitting. Downtown commodity office is headed for conversion. O’Hare industrial is a scarcity fortress. Suburban office is bifurcated—winners like Oak Brook, losers facing redevelopment. Lake County is the quiet success story. IOS is institutional gold. And across all asset classes, the real upside is in infill redevelopment that municipalities will support.

That’s why investors, developers, and occupiers listen to Gordon Lamphere and Van Vlissingen & Co. They’re not chasing headlines. They’re closing the deals that will become tomorrow’s case studies.

Reach Our Team of Commercial Real Estate Agents In Chicago

What happens when a university’s classrooms, labs, and dorms sit half-empty, while its budget bleeds red?

On this episode of The Real Finds Podcast, host Gordon Lamphere sits down with Chris Morett, founder of Coheer Campus & Workplace and longtime higher-ed real estate strategist, to unpack one of the most overlooked corners of the built world: college campuses as real estate assets.

Chris spent a decade as Director of Scheduling and Space Management at Rutgers University before launching his consulting practice. Few people understand the messy realities of campus utilization or how much money is lost when academic buildings are misused. In this conversation, Gordon and Chris dive deep into:

• The utilization myth: Why classrooms and labs are chronically underused — and how centralized scheduling makes all the difference.
• Incentive structures: How universities owning their buildings warps efficiency compared to private companies leasing space.
• Leasing trends: Why some universities quietly lease space off campus, or even rent out their own space to startups and biotech partners.
• Urban vs. rural campuses: Why Northwestern and Rutgers operate differently than small regional colleges in Idaho or Montana.
• The demographic cliff: Shrinking enrollment, tuition discounting, and which institutions are most at risk of closure or merger.
• Developer opportunities: Where private investors can partner with universities to unlock hidden value, adaptive reuse, and innovation hubs.
• Policy shocks: From NIH grant cuts to visa restrictions, how Washington decisions ripple through labs, student housing, and construction budgets.
• The future of labs vs. data centers: Why labs may be the “accessible” frontier for developers compared to the capital intensity of AI infrastructure.

For commercial real estate professionals, developers, and investors, this episode offers a rare lens on higher education’s role as both economic driver and real estate powerhouse. Universities may be nonprofit, but their campuses are multi-billion-dollar portfolios — and how they adapt will reshape communities across the country.

📚 Chris also shares timeless advice for young professionals: focus on your hidden strengths, even the things that come naturally and don’t feel like “work.”

🔗 Learn more about Chris and his work at Team Coheer or connect with him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-morett/

Learn more about more untapped potential commercial real estate opportunities at www.vvco.com.

👉 If you’re interested in how campuses, developers, and communities intersect — and what’s next for higher ed real estate — this is an episode you don’t want to miss.