Marc Lifshin
Founder & CEO
Marc is a company founder and Chief Executive Officer of Core Spaces.
Marc’s vision is to develop and manage real estate in multiple sectors that reinvents the environment where our tenants live and how they enjoy the spaces they call home. Marc steers company objectives by monitoring and evaluating the ever-changing market trends in multi-family housing, and by doing so, keeps Core a progressive industry leader. Marc also focuses on ensuring the company’s working environment encourages fun, success, responsibility, and the right amount of risk-taking.
Marc graduated from the University of Illinois with a Bachelor of Science in General Engineering and Minor in Business Administration. Post-degree, Marc worked for Vail Resorts and IKON before starting his own real estate development company, LG Development Group (LG). Through LG, a student-housing platform evolved, as did segmentation into the hospitality and conventional multi-family markets. These new divisions are now known today as Core Spaces.
Core Spaces Executive Management Team
Daniel Goldberg
Executive Managing Director — President
As Executive Managing Director — President, Dan leads the company’s strategy and innovation. Prior to Core, Dan was at Blackstone, where he focused on acquisitions, leading the acquisition of a $1.2 billion student housing portfolio, with 10,500 beds across 20 properties, in conjunction with the $4.6 billion take-private of Education Realty Trust. Apart from real estate acquisitions at Blackstone, he was also involved in overseeing its U.S. core-plus real estate platform, which controls over $45 billion of high-quality real estate. Before Blackstone, Dan was at Goldman Sachs for over 10 years, mainly in real estate private equity, where he led over $1 billion of student housing investments.
Dan received his B.S. in neuroscience from Brown University. He serves on the board of Getting Out and Staying Out, a Harlem-based charity that seeks to reduce recidivism rates through job readiness and financial literacy courses.
Chad Matesi
Executive Managing Director — Chief Operating Officer
Since joining Core in 2013, Chad has been involved in the orchestration, design, development and construction of over 10 million square feet of student housing totaling $3 Billion in project value. As Executive Managing Director — Chief Operating Officer, Chad is responsible for overseeing the Student Housing and Build-to-Rent design, development and construction platforms Core’s Ancillary Businesses and ensuring efficient and productive operations of the company’s development and operating platforms while also guiding strategic planning. Chad works with Executive Team and Vertical Presidents to help define Core’s vision and strategy, developing results to execute against and overseeing operations required to achieve those objectives.
Chad graduated from the University of Illinois with a Masters of Architecture with a concentration in Construction Management & Real Estate Finance starting his career in real estate in 2004. Chad has spent time over the past years serving on the Urban Land Institute – Young Leaders Board, the Young Real Estate Professionals Board, the Harold E. Eisenberg Foundation Associate Board, and the Illinois Real Estate Alumni Forum.
John Wieker
Executive Managing Director — Chief Financial Officer
As Chief Financial Officer, John oversees Core Spaces’ capital relationships and capital raising efforts. His role includes developing the firm’s investments strategy and managing and developing various investor relationships.
Prior to joining Core Spaces, John spent over 15 years as a real estate investment banker at Merrill Lynch, Citi and, most recently, Macquarie Capital. In these roles, he has been involved in over $100 billion of real estate transactions across a variety of real estate sectors, including public and private capital raises and advisory assignments.
John has an MBA from Columbia Business School and a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Southern California.
Andrew Weidner
Executive Managing Director — Chief Capital Officer
As Chief Capital Officer of Core Spaces, Andrew is responsible for overseeing Core’s debt platform to ensure capital needs are aligned with the goals of the company. His role includes identifying new financial opportunities, analyzing the company’s investment strategy, and managing debt and equity relationships.
Prior to his current role, Andrew served as Chief Acquisitions Officer at Core, responsible for identifying and evaluating new development and acquisition opportunities. Andrew previously spent 13 years sourcing debt and equity for a broad-reaching client base, ranging from small family shops to billion-dollar pension funds. In his mortgage banking role, Andrew arranged more than $3 billion of financing for all property types, including office buildings, shopping centers, student housing developments, single-tenant buildings, hotels, industrial warehouses, and land development.
Andrew graduated from the University of Illinois with a Bachelor’s degree in Finance and a minor in Italian. He enjoys life in the Chicago area with his wife and 3 kids and is Chairman of the Memory Rock Committee benefiting the Alzheimer’s Association.
Christine Richards
Executive Managing Director — President Property Management
Chris is currently the Executive Managing Director — President Property Management. She also serves as a member of the Advisory board for College House, a student housing market research platform, and holds a seat on the New Memphis Board of Governors, an organization that recruits and retains top talent for the local Memphis, TN community.
Chris co-founded Richards Heating & Air, LLC in 2004 specializing in mechanical contracting services for residential communities.
Chris was previously an Executive Director for Greystar Real Estate Partners overseeing their domestic owned and managed student platform, where she worked from 2018-2020; COO and EVP at Education Realty Trust (NYSE: EDR) where she worked from 2001-2018; and a manager at Gables Residential/Trammell Crow, where she worked from 1990-2001.
Chris is a member of the National Apartment Association’s (NAA) Student Housing Committee, a past member of the NAA board of directors, the past chair of the NAA Student Housing Committee, a member of the Institute of Real Estate Management, and a certified property manager (CPM). Chris is actively involved in the New Memphis Organization and a graduate of the Leadership Development Institute (LDI). She received her BA in education from the University of Memphis.
Jennifer Holmes
Executive Managing Director — Chief Financial Officer
As Executive Managing Director – Chief Financial Officer, Jen is responsible for leading Core’s financial planning, reporting, tax, and treasury functions.
Prior to joining Core, Jen was the Chief Accounting Officer of Urban Edge Properties, a publicly traded retail REIT. At Urban Edge, she oversaw all aspects of accounting, forecasting, tax, treasury, and investor relations. Jen began her career in Public Accounting at Deloitte based out of the Chicago, London, and New York offices serving publicly traded and privately held clients in the real estate and financial services industries.
Jen graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting and Finance from the University of Wisconsin – Madison Business School.
Core Spaces Senior Management Team
Mitch Dalton
Senior Managing Director — Chief Innovation Officer
As Chief Innovation Officer, Mitch is responsible for ensuring new developments and acquisitions adhere to Core’s programmatic, qualitative and financial objectives. This includes site identification, market research, feasibility analysis, and underwriting, project programming and design, budgeting and scheduling, as well as project management and delivery.
Mitch graduated from DePaul University with a Bachelor’s in Economics and Real Estate Finance, as well as an M.B.A. in Real Estate Finance and Investment.
Joe Gatto
Managing Director of Acquisitions
Joe is a part of the acquisitions team that is responsible for sourcing development and value-add opportunities of land and underperforming assets. Joe is involved in all aspects of the acquisitions process from site identification and underwriting through due diligence and entitlement.
Prior to joining Core Spaces, Joe gained broad experience as a broker in all aspects of commercial real estate including leasing, investment sales, and land sales. In his career, Joe was involved in over 90 transactions totaling over 1,600,000 SF.
Joe graduated from DePaul University with a Bachelor’s in Real Estate Finance.
Purpose Built Single Family Rental Team
Ron Martin
President
Ron oversees all land acquisition, entitlements, horizontal development, product development, vertical development, clubhouse and amenity construction, and leasing operations for Oxenfree. Prior to joining Core Spaces, Ron has been in the home building industry for over 25 years. Roughly half the time working for a private homebuilder, including running his own custom homebuilding company, and the other half with publicly traded home builders. Most recently he was with M/I Homes as a Region President overseeing five states and the corporate marketing department. Ron has a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from Valparaiso University.
Cliff Payne
Chief Investment Officer
Cliff is responsible for guiding Core’s investment strategy and coverage of capital partner relationships within single family rental and brings over 15 years of relevant industry expertise. Prior to joining Core Spaces, Cliff spent approximately thirteen years at Equity International focused on investing in private real estate companies globally. Previously, he worked in New York in Merrill Lynch’s real estate investment banking group where he focused on capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, and other advisory engagements. Cliff graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in business administration from the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis.
Matt Pagoria
Vice President Land Acquisition
Matt is responsible for managing the land acquisition and entitlements of development deals in Texas, including the strategic placement of Core’s acquisition dollars and development of new business opportunities in that market. He brings over 22 years of relevant industry experience to the Core Spaces single family rental team. Prior to Core Spaces, Matt worked for the City of Aurora, IL, as a City Planner for four years, Ryland Homes (Chicago) as VP Land Acquisition for over eight years, M/I Homes (Chicago) as VP Land Acquisition for over seven years, and then moved to Dallas to work with Meritage Homes as VP Land Acquisition for one-plus year. Matt graduated from University of Illinois with a degree in Urban and Regional Planning.
Shannon Robbins
Vice President Land Acquisition
Shannon is responsible for managing the land acquisition and entitlements of development deals in Colorado, including the strategic placement of Core’s acquisition dollars and development of new business opportunities in that market. She brings over 24 years of relevant industry experience to the Core Spaces single family rental team. Prior to Core Spaces, Shannon was with Brookfield Properties for nine years as Vice President, leading the Land Acquisition, Land Development and Architecture Teams. Prior to Brookfield Properties, Shannon worked for Hendricks Communities and Everest Development Company overseeing mixed-use residential, mixed-use commercial and multi-family developments as well as working for Richmond American Homes as the National Vice President of Architecture. Shannon has a Bachelor of Environmental Design with concentration in Architecture as well as her Master of Business Administration, both from the University of Colorado.
Hamilton Stolpen
Vice President Land Acquisition
Hamilton is responsible for managing the land acquisition and entitlements of development deals in the Carolinas, including the strategic placement of Core’s acquisition dollars and development of new business opportunities in that market. He brings over 17 years of relevant industry experience to the Core Spaces single family rental team in the Carolinas having acquired, developed or built over 6500 single family lots ($2.5B+). Prior to Core Spaces, Hamilton had his own construction and development company building single family homes and consulting on Land Acquisition and Land Development projects for third parties. Prior to this Hamilton worked for American Homes for Rent and was a part of the team that launched the Build to Rent segment of their business and oversaw all Land Acquisition and Land Development for North Carolina, as well as worked for Ryland Homes and CalAtlantic Homes as Vice President of Land in the Charlotte, Land Manager for Mattamy Homes in the Charlotte Market, prior Hamilton was Vice President of Operations for Nu South Builders and its associated Land Development companies leading their construction, land and their financial business operation for both residential and commercial business segments. Hamilton has a Bachelors of Science in Business Management with concentrations in finance and technology from Babson College; and holds a General Contractors license.
Larry Franks
Vice President Land Acquisition
Larry is responsible for managing the land acquisition and entitlements of development deals in Florida, including the strategic placement of Core’s acquisition dollars and development of new business opportunities in that market. He brings over 23 years of relevant industry experience to the Core Spaces single family rental team in Florida having acquired and developed over 8,000 single family lots ($3.2B+). Prior to Core Spaces, Larry worked for several National home builders including Toll Brothers, Meritage Homes, CalAtlantic/Ryland Homes and KB Home as their VP of Land. Prior to his experience with these builders, Larry ran a development firm that had over $125 Million in development projects, built 150,000 SF in commercial space and delivered 900+residential units. Larry graduated from University of Florida with his MBA and University of South Florida with his Bachelor of Science in Marketing.
Abby Wachtel
Senior Analyst Investments
Abby is responsible for facilitating the execution and underwriting of acquisition and development opportunities. Prior to joining Core Spaces, Abby worked for Pritzker Realty Group focusing on asset management, acquisitions, and development of Industrial properties in Chicago. Abby graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a Bachelor of Science in Finance.
Aaron Friedman
Director, Acquisitions
Aaron’s responsibilities include execution and underwriting of acquisition and development opportunities. Prior to Core Spaces, Aaron worked for JP Morgan Asset Management focusing on acquisitions, asset management, and debt investments where he worked directly on $2.0B of multifamily deals in the Central U.S. Aaron graduated from Cornell University’s S.C. Johnson College of Business with a Bachelor of Science.
Connor Smith
Senior Associate Investments
Connor’s responsibilities include execution and underwriting of acquisition and development opportunities. Prior to Core Spaces, Connor worked for Pearlmark and was focused on acquisitions and mezzanine debt investments across the United States. Prior to Pearlmark, Connor was with Brookfield Asset Management where he was focused on the acquisition and development of industrial and logistics assets throughout the Western half of the United States. Connor graduated from Cornell University’s S.C. Johnson College of Business with a Bachelor of Science.
Donny Fineberg
Associate Investments
Donny’s responsibilities include execution and underwriting of acquisition and development opportunities. Prior to Core Spaces, Donny worked for Heitman’s acquisitions team, covering multifamily, student housing, storage and single-family rentals across the nation. Donny graduated from University of Colorado Leeds School of Business with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Finance.
Jordan Robinson
Senior Analyst Investments
Jordan is responsible for facilitating the execution and underwriting of acquisition and development opportunities. Prior to joining Core Spaces, Jordan worked for Watermark Lodging Trust focusing on asset management and acquisitions of upper upscale and luxury full-service hotels. Jordan graduated from Cornell University’s S.C. Johnson College of Business with a Bachelor of Science.
Hannah Bowers
Director, Marketing & Operations
Hannah oversees the property management and marketing strategies for the Oxenfree portfolio. With over a decade of property management experience in both student and multi-family housing, she brings best in class leasing and operational practices to the Oxenfree team. Hannah has a Bachelor of Science in Hospitality Management with Minors in Accountancy and Business Administration from Ole Miss.
Michael Kritzman
AICP – Director of Planning
Michael is responsible for guiding development of the Oxenfree design platform and overseeing project design and planning efforts across the company’s nationwide portfolio. Michael brings over 15 years of professional consulting experience managing site and development master planning projects, preparing land use & zoning policies, and supporting due diligence and entitlement efforts. He is a certified planner, with a Master’s degree in Real Estate from Roosevelt University and Bachelor in Landscape Architecture from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
César Rodarte
Assoc. AIA — Associate Urban Designer
César’s responsibilities include assisting the director of planning in the development of the Oxenfree design platform while creating site plans and design standards. Prior to joining Core spaces in July 2022, César worked for multiple award winning architecture firms for 5 years as head project designer and project architect. Architecture and planning experience include multi-billion dollar planning and design of mission critical facilities, office spaces and educational campuses. César obtained a Masters of Architecture and a Masters of Urban Design from Washington University in St. Louis after graduating Cum Laude from Texas Tech University with a Bachelor of Science in Architecture.
Mason Orradre
Development Manager, Entitlements
Mason’s responsibilities include the acquisition, due diligence, entitlement and pre-construction transition for new single-family rental communities in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Prior to joining Core Spaces in March 2022, Mason worked for a Dallas-Fort Worth based real estate developer, Realty Capital Management for six years, managing multiple facets of the development process, such as assessing properties, securing government approvals, construction management and the disposition of real estate assets. Mason graduated Cum Laude from Texas Christian University with a Bachelor of Business Administration and a Certificate in Ranch Management.
Adisa Kahvedzic
Development Accounting Manager
Adisa is responsible for creating and overseeing financial reporting for the single-family rental portfolio. She brings 10 years of accounting experience which include Construction, Property Management, and Consulting. Adisa has a Bachelor’s in Business Administration & Accounting from Northeastern Illinois University.
Dan Garvey
Financial Planning & Analysis Manager
Dan is responsible for forecasting and budgeting for the various Core Spaces corporate entities involved in the single-family rental portfolio. Dan is also responsible for maintaining and analyzing portfolio level financial performance models. He brings seven years of relevant finance and accounting experience to the Core Spaces single-family rental team. Prior to joining Core Spaces in April 2022, Dan worked at Heitman Capital Management focusing on investment reporting, valuations, and budgeting. Dan has a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting from Saint Louis University and maintains a Certified Public Accountant license.
Lejla Dzinic
Development Accounting Associate
Lejla is responsible for overseeing development financial reporting for the Core Spaces single-family rental portfolio team.Prior to Core Spaces, she brings relevant property management accounting experience. CPA is in progress as she maintains a B.S in Accounting, graduating with Honors from Robert Morris University Illinois.
Jessica Malone
Talent Acquisition Partner
Jessica is responsible for all aspects of recruitment strategy for the BTR team. She brings over 5 years of experience supporting public sector and private real estate companies. Jessica graduated cum laude with a Bachelor’s degree in Resort & Hospitality Management from Florida Gulf Coast University. She combines the white glove service of hospitality with recruitment to build relationships and assure we are adding the best and strongest talent to our growing team.