Principle and Co-Founder
Chuck Bragitikos has more than 20 years of experience working with developers, professional sports teams, gaming companies and the public sector on conceiving and developing unique dining, entertainment and retail destinations. He has consulted with major brands and entrepreneurs on creating individual tenants. His passion lies in working with a team to develop the strategy for a given project and then creating strategic relationships and creative financing for the implementation of the destination.
Chuck and his partner Jason are currently developing the strategy, concept and program for the retail, dining and entertainment uses at Revel, a $2.6 billion resort destination in Atlantic City. As strategic advisor and owner’s representative for Aztar, the parent company of the Tropicana Casinos, Chuck worked on the $300 million expansion of the company’s flagship Atlantic City property, the Quarter. He similarly led a team charged with developing the concept, program and business strategy for the podium of a $1 billion redevelopment planned for the Tropicana Casino and Resort in Las Vegas.
He also had key responsibility for negotiating the agreement for a $40 million expansion and privatization of the New Jersey State Aquarium and securing master development rights for 30 acres of adjacent land along the Camden waterfront an urban mixed-used project. Chuck has also worked with companies such as Simon Property Group, Hillwood Development, Palladium and Steiner + Associates on forging public-private partnerships.Chuck is co-founder and former principal at MRA International. Chuck is a graduate of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
Q: As a company, tell me about the niche you have carved out for yourself and how you feel you are different from the competition. Why do you find this product type more appealing than alternative real estate asset classes?
A: Over the years, we’ve evolved our business to focus on creating fun and engaging entertainment destinations. Essentially, we create a dynamic mix of retail, dining and entertainment (“RDE”) venues that define and animate a larger mixed use development. Our role covers the full spectrum of the development, from conceiving the development program and financial strategy, to guiding the design team, to implementing the plan with individual tenants and operators.
Like many other real estate endeavors, every project is a new adventure that fuels our entrepreneurial passions. We customize the RDE strategy and blend of venues very specifically to match a given project and its market realities. We consciously avoid formulaic approaches, which we find to be very limiting. We particularly enjoy the RDE space because we are constantly developing new relationships with incredibly creative designers and restaurateurs, chefs, retailers, entertainers and other innovative operators.
We’re fortunate to have built upon our original experiences in urban and waterfront development to work on many high profile, large scale, long-term projects in the gaming, hospitality, sports and entertainment spaces. We immerse ourselves in our projects and this has allowed us to develop lasting relationships with our partners, clients and operators.
We are also proud of and motivated by the fact that our projects create meaningful positive impact for their host communities, creating significant employment and new taxes and many are often catalysts for broader districts. Several of our projects have also elevated the profiles of the tenants we placed, helping them roll out their concepts on a national stage.
Q: How did you get your start in the business?
A: Pure serendipity. Our firm evolved out of two predecessor firms, the first of which hired me as part of an undergraduate work study program. This firm was an offshoot of the Rouse Company, which pioneered the Festival Marketplace concepts, among other product types. While we’ve certainly evolved over the past 20 + years, the core of our work still revolves around using RDE venues as the heart of a development.
Q: What is the hardest challenge you have faced in your career? How did you overcome it?
A: Given the scale of the projects with which we’re involved, we typically only take on a few projects at a time, many lasting for 5 or more years. It’s always difficult when you invest yourself in a project to the degree that we do for this length of time to have a project go away for reasons unrelated to your efforts. Unfortunately this has happened more than once over my career. Perhaps the most challenging was after we spent 4 years fully planning the demolition and redevelopment of the Tropicana in Las Vegas. Our team had planned an incredible project, targeting the mass middle market in Las Vegas with quality brands and experiences. Aztar, Tropicana’s parent company, was sold at the absolute peak of the financial bubble and our project was canceled.
It was incredibly disappointing to not see our strategy and efforts materialize after so much hard work. Over the four year period, however, we built strong relationships with the restaurateurs and entertainment providers that we were targeting for the Tropicana. We were able to build upon these relationships and took many of the concepts we developed to other resorts in Las Vegas and to other parts of the country, where we’ve also developed new associations with the people involved in these projects.
Q: If you weren’t in real estate, what would you be doing with your life?
A: I’ve developed a deep interest in many of the operating businesses with which we work, so I suppose I could see myself as owning an interesting restaurant or entertainment concept and rolling that out.
Q: What organizations, charities etc are you a member of? Why are they important to you?
A: I’m most proud to serve on the board of Coopers Ferry Development Association, a private, non-profit corporation which oversees much of the economic development activity within Camden, New Jersey. CFDA has worked tirelessly to catalyze over $500 million of development, often with very limited resources of its own. The commitment, passion and impact of the organization’s founder and current leadership is truly inspiring to me.
Q: What do your weekend activities include?
A: Despite our relationships with many hip entertainment operators, weekends are centered around my wife, two kids and extended family and friends.
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Trade confidently with insights and alerts from analyst ratings, free reports and breaking news that affects the stocks you care about.
