Travis & Travis Provide Local and Family Business Insight

Cornell Program in Real Estate Industry Seminar

Date: November 1, 2007
When: 4:30-6:30 pm
Where: Beck Center 198
Admittance: By Invitation Only

The Cornell Program in Real Estate welcomes Mack and Frost Travis of Ithaca Rentals and Renovations and Travis & Travis Development, LLC, to the Real Estate Industry Seminar this Thursday.

Mack is a respected and leading figure in the Ithaca real estate community, and has been involved in real estate ownership, management, and development in Ithaca since 1971. He is now president of the Ithaca Downtown Partnership—a Business Improvement District formed to improve the downtown economy. He served 9 years on the board of directors of the local hospital—Cayuga Medical Center. He served 6 years on the board of McGraw House—an elderly housing facility of 104 units in downtown—3 of those years he served as president. He is also active in the day to day management of his management company, Ithaca Rentals & Renovations, Inc. Mack and his wife, Carol, recently completed the development of the four-acre Gateway Plaza site in downtown Ithaca into a 52,000 square foot office/retail complex, along with Gateway Center, a 26 unit luxury apartment building.

Mack graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1965, where he received a B.A. degree in theatre, followed by a master’s degree in that field from The University of Connecticut in 1967.

As a successful entrepreneur in real estate, Mack has always sought to further his understanding of the industry. To that end, he has been a regular participant in workshops at the Wharton Business School, NYU's Stern School of Business, and the Battelle Institute. He also has been a regular guest lecturer at Cornell University in both the hotel school and the Program in Real Estate.

Frost began his real estate career in 1996, when he joined his father at Ithaca Rentals and Renovations as a project manager and commercial property manager, assisting in the marketing and leasing of a 144,000 sq. ft. mixed-use building and 300 student apartments in Ithaca. Before enrolling in Cornell’s Program in Real Estate full-time in 1998, Frost completed introductory course work for the degree while leading the development effort for a proposed 32-unit apartment building a block from the university. In order to defer some of his costs while at Cornell, Frost purchased a single family home and converted it into a duplex.

In 2000, Frost joined Urban American, a family real estate company founded in 1998, as the operations manager and acquisition analyst. At Urban American, Frost conceived and developed a 35-page marketing presentation including demographic and market analysis for Hudson County, NJ. This was used by venture capital partners to raise $25 million in equity capital for future expansion and became the basis for a later marketing tool used to raise a $100 million equity fund. As part of the subsequent expansion, he also performed due diligence and detailed financial analysis for several apartment portfolios. In 2003, Frost was appointed construction director for UA Development, the subsidiary of Urban American Housing, a private REIT formed out of the initial Urban American venture in 2002. His duties included overseeing project management staff responsible for estimating, contract administration, scheduling, material deliveries, contractor payments, and municipal inspections for 80 different contractors and vendors.

In March of 2007, Frost re-joined Ithaca Rentals and Renovations and Travis & Travis Real Estate Development, LLC. In his capacity as general manager for Ithaca Rentals, his current projects include commercial leasing and marketing, and the reorganization of Ithaca Rental’s operations. As a partner in Travis & Travis, Frost is pursuing the redevelopment of the Ithaca Gun factory site in a public-private partnership with the city of Ithaca.

For more information on Ithaca Rentals and Renovations please visit: http://www.ithaca-rentals.com/index.htm