Jonathan F.P. Rose

Jonathan F.P. Rose (born 1952)^[1] is an American real estate developer and member of the Rose family. He is one of the largest developers of affordable and green housing in New York City and works in the areas of public policy, planning, project management, development and investment. ^[2][3]

Early life and education

Rose was born to a Jewish family^[4] in Harrison, New York and raised in Scarsdale, New York, the son of Sandra (née Priest) and Frederick P. Rose.^[5] His grandfather, Samuel B. Rose, and great-uncle, David Rose, founded the real estate development company Rose Associates in 1923 and built small apartment buildings in the Bronx and then in Manhattan in the 1930s.^[5] His father, Frederick P. Rose, who later served as the chairman of Rose Associates, expanded the company with his two brothers, Daniel and Elihu.^[5] Rose attended the Horace Mann School and graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in Psychology and Philosophy in 1974; and then earned a MRP, Master in Regional Planning, from the University of Pennsylvania^[1] in a program lead by Ian McHarg.

Career

After graduate school he worked as the head of the real estate committee of The Educational Alliance which provided housing, drug treatment centers, and social services.^[1] He then went to work for the family company Rose Associates where he served as the retail leasing manager of the 1,000 apartment Mitchell-Lama Manhattan Plaza developed by Richard Ravitch which required 70% of its residents to be employed in the performing arts.^[1] Rose Associates then developed the 895 apartment Sheffield at 57th and 8th Avenue^[1] before going into Brooklyn where in 1984, he developed the master plan for the Atlantic Terminal, a mixed use, mixed income, transit orient project with a green focus; although due to a recession, he was forced to sell their interest to Bruce Ratner.^[1]

In 1989, he left the family business, moved to Denver, Colorado, and founded his own company Jonathan Rose Companies where he purchased the Denver Dry Goods Company Building from The May Department Stores Company, dividing it into separate components including retail, multi-income residential, and office.^[1] He went on to develop additional affordable housing in Yonkers, New York with the Graceton Foundation^[1] and became the board member in charge of the design and construction of the Jazz at Lincoln Center.^[1] Jonathan Rose Companies does public policy, planning, project management, development of mixed use and mixed income projects, and investment.^[2] On the policy side, they help to develop government programs that support healthier cities. Their planning work is focused on environmental issues and on low-income housing including the South Bronx Greenway, and the Newark and Passaic River waterfronts. On the project-management side, they partner with both cities and not-for-profits and are re-developing the campus of the New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering in Brooklyn. About 50% of their development work is with not-for-profits.^[2] In 2010, his firm had 70 employees and managing $1.5 billion of work.^[2] He built the Third & Valley project in South Orange, New Jersey.^[6] The Jonathan Rose Companies’ Smart Growth Investment Fund is the country’s first real estate fund focused exclusively on acquiring and retrofitting green buildings.^[7]

Rose was the founder of Gramavision Records, now a subsidiary of Rykodisc producing over 75 jazz and new music recordings of artists including Taj Mahal, the Kronos Quartet, and John Scofield.^[8][9]

Rose is the author of 'The Well-Tempered City: What Modern Science, Ancient Civilizations, and Human Nature Teach Us About the Future of Urban Life, published by Harper Wave in September 2016.

Philanthropy

Rose is a Trustee of the Urban Land Institute and co-chair of its Climate and Energy Committee; the Natural Resources Defense Council; Enterprise Community Partners; chairs the Metropolitan Transit Authority's Blue Ribbon Sustainability Commission; serves on the leadership councils of both Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and the School of Architecture,^[10] and is on the board of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. In 2002 Rose and his wife, Diana Rose, co-founded the Garrison Institute in an old monastery "to connect the wisdom of the contemplative traditions with social and environmental action."^[11]

Personal life

He is married is Diana Calthorpe, sister of architect Peter Calthorpe.^[12] They have one daughter together, artist Rachel Rose (born 1986); Calthorpe also has a daughter from a previous marriage, Ariel Flores Zurofsky (born 1973).^[1][11] His father was the head of UJA-Federation of New York.^[1] Rose describes himself as both Jewish and Buddhist stating "I think Buddhism has really advanced the science of the mind, and Judaism has advanced the process of generosity."^[11]

Further reading

• Jonathan F.P. Rose blog
• In a Bronx Complex, Doing Good Mixes With Looking Good^[13] NY Times article on Via Verde, a subsidized housing development in the South Bronx, a collaboration between "Jonathan Rose, a for-profit developer known for social engagement, and Phipps Houses Group,a nonprofit outfit with a long history in subsidized housing."
• The New Shapes of New York^[14] NY Times article lists the Rose Companies' Via Verde as one of "the projects that have captured the imagination of more than a dozen shapers and observers of the city consulted by The New York Times for their perspective on the new standouts."

References