Frank Su

Development Manager
The Castle Group

  • PRE Year: 2003
  • Concentration: Real Estate Development
  • Hometown: San Francisco, CA

Looking Back:

After working as an Architect in San Francisco and Boston for 5 years, I realized that Architecture & Engineering is a very small part of the overall process of creating buildings, spaces, and environments. The process of actually building a project takes years of political/social awareness, financial feasibility, and market analysis, which in turn dramatically affects a majority of site and building design decisions. For me, the Cornell Program in Real Estate taught me the “big picture” of development, finance, and management across all asset classes and provided the flexibility to focus on different disciplines. Real Estate projects require a collaborative effort of many different private/public interests and the PRE engages the student with the understanding and motivations of all the “players” involved.

Career:

After graduating from the PRE, I accepted a job with Toll Brothers, Inc in their Northern California division as an Assistant Project Manager (APM) on one of Toll’s first high density projects in the country. After the first year, I was promoted to a Project Manager and in charge of the construction, sales, marketing, and city permitting of a 626 unit condominium project at a residential density of 65 dwelling units per acre. In my 3rd year at Toll, I moved into the Land Acquisition and Entitlement group as a Land Acquisition Manager working on various land deals in Northern California and entitlements on a mid-rise residential project in San Jose, CA. Toll Brothers was a great starting point to learn about the entire process of a project from acquisition to sales.

My current position is as a Development Manager for The Castle Group. I am currently managing the entitlements and development for 3 residential and mixed use projects in the Bay Area, which comprises of 1,600 units with a total capitalization of $700 million dollars. My role as a Development manager is to work on the entire development process, including sourcing land/projects, obtaining entitlements, working with finance and equity partners, supervising construction, and managing leasing/sales.