Role: Senior VP at Vornado. Second in command on the development side. Reports to Barry, who is Head of the Development Group.
Current project: Running 350 Park Avenue — the most expensive building ever to be built in New York, and possibly the world. Demolition just started. He is actively building his team right now.
Background: Worked at Tishman before joining Vornado ~14 years ago. Has seen all market cycles. Extremely organized, intelligent, and efficient.
Communication style: Succinct. Gives direction. Expects you to go execute with minimal hand-holding, come back with a short focused set of questions, then finish. Think military chain of command — this is exactly your natural mode.
Personal: Into skiing, sports, outdoor activities. Two kids (teens/preteens) who go to school in NYC. Brother-in-law is a Green Beret — he deeply respects military training and understands what it produces.
What he wants in this hire: Someone he can trust to own component pieces of 350 Park independently, interact with spec tenants on TRCs, jump into contracts and pro formas quickly, work with the MTA and city agencies, and not need everything explained. He wants a long-term person — do NOT hint at leaving.
Pre-interview checklist — do before Friday
✅ You are the wild card — acknowledged you don't have plug-and-play experience but your personality is the differentiator. Lean into that, don't try to fake a real estate background you don't have.
✅ Military background = huge advantage — his brother-in-law is a Green Beret. He respects this deeply. Play it up honestly.
✅ Never mention leaving or starting your own firm. He wants a long-term person who he can train. He's investing 7 years into this.
✅ Yield on cost is the only metric that matters — VNO development doesn't talk cap rates. Know yield on cost, development spread, and interest rate environment.
✅ Walking the site already = huge — mention it. He will love it.
✅ Be the person who's easy to work with. He wants someone who takes direction, executes, comes back with short focused questions. Don't make him feel like he has to babysit you.
✅ The job is a 7-year project. Show you're excited about the scale, not intimidated by the timeline.
Technical concepts Alan cares about
Yield on Cost = Stabilized NOI / Total Project Cost
Development Spread = Yield on Cost − Exit Cap Rate
In plain English: "What cash return are we generating on every dollar we spend to build this?" If you spend $4.5B to build 350 Park and it generates $405M of stabilized NOI, your yield on cost is 9%. If market cap rates for comparable buildings are 4.5%, your development spread is 450 bps. That spread IS the value creation — you're building something worth more than you spent.
Why VNO uses this instead of cap rate: Cap rates are for buying existing buildings. Yield on cost is for building new ones. When you're underwriting a development, you don't know the exit cap rate for years — but you can control your costs and underwrite to a target yield. VNO targets 9%+ on current projects.
350 Park example: ~$4.5B+ total project cost (land, hard costs, soft costs, capitalized interest, TI/LC). If stabilized NOI at full occupancy (1.8M sf × $150/sf rents × 85% occupancy × 70% NOI margin) comes to ~$400M+, you're at or above 9% yield. That justifies every dollar spent.
What it is: Uniform Land Use Review Procedure. The process NYC uses to change zoning or approve special permits for large developments. Required whenever a project needs something beyond as-of-right zoning.
The 7 steps (with approximate timeline):
1. Pre-certification — applicant prepares application, Environmental Assessment Statement, EIS if required
2. DCP Certification — Dept. of City Planning certifies the application to start the clock (~1–2 months prep)
3. Community Board — local CB has 60 days to review and provide advisory recommendation
4. Borough President — 30 days to issue recommendation
5. City Planning Commission — 60 days to hold hearings and vote
6. City Council — 50 days to review and vote; Council approval is binding
7. Mayor — 5 days to sign or veto City Council action
Total: ~7 months from DCP certification to completion
350 Park's ULURP specifically: Application filed January 2025. DCP certified March 2025. City Council approved unanimously (48–0) in October 2025. Permits filed November 2025. Demolition commenced March 2026. The project was the first new office building presented to the City Planning Commission in five years.
FAR (Floor Area Ratio): Total buildable floor area / lot area. The base FAR in Midtown East is 15 — meaning on a 10,000 sf lot you can build 150,000 sf. The 2017 Greater East Midtown Rezoning expanded FAR for certain blocks to up to 25, unlocking denser development.
350 Park's FAR journey: Base site FAR under Midtown East rezoning allowed a certain buildable area. But to reach 1.8M sf on that block, VNO and Citadel needed to go beyond base FAR. They did this two ways:
1. Air rights purchase from landmarks: VNO/Citadel paid $150M in air rights from St. Patrick's Cathedral and St. Bartholomew's Church. Under the 2017 Midtown East Rezoning, landmarks in the 78-block area can sell unused development rights to any site within the zone. This allowed 350 Park to increase its FAR beyond what the base site permitted.
2. Public realm contribution: The project contributed >$35M to the city's East Midtown Public Realm Improvement Fund, unlocking an additional zoning bonus. The 12,500 sf public plaza along Park Avenue (designed by Field Operations) was the physical requirement for this bonus — public space in exchange for extra FAR.
Result: Base zoning (FAR 15) + Midtown East rezoning uplift + $150M air rights from St. Pat's & St. Bart's + public plaza bonus = FAR approximately 25 → enabling 1.8M sf on that block.
The process Morgan walked you through:
Step 1 — Base building term sheet: Tenant (e.g., Amazon) signs a term sheet for the base building spec: 11-ft ceilings, core bathrooms, standard elevator lobbies. This is what's underwritten in the pro forma.
Step 2 — Tenant requests upgrade: 3 months in, as they're planning their office layout, the tenant comes back: "We want marble bathrooms and a fully digitized elevator lobby. Can you price what it would cost for your GC to do that before we move in?"
Step 3 — Developer prices it: Development team works with the GC to price the upgrade. Then you have to determine: (a) Is it technically feasible? (b) Can it be done before tenant occupancy? (c) What does it actually cost?
Step 4 — Negotiate payment structure: Two options for who pays and how:
Option A: Rent increase — landlord builds it, tenant pays back via amortized rent increase over 5 years
Option B: Direct reimbursement — tenant writes a check directly for the work
The complexity: Not all requests are feasible. Electrical upgrades, elevator modifications, structural work — some can be done pre-occupancy, some can't be done at all. The development team has to be the expert on what's possible and price it accurately before negotiating with the tenant.
Your analogy: This is very similar to change orders in shipbuilding — a spec is agreed, then mid-process the operator wants a modification. You price it, negotiate who absorbs the cost, determine feasibility within the schedule, and execute. Same logic, different asset.
Current environment (April 2026): 10-year Treasury at ~4.20%. Fed funds rate still elevated after the 2022–23 tightening cycle. SOFR-based floating rate loans pricing at SOFR + spread (VNO's recent loans: SOFR+1.20% to SOFR+1.78% range). This matters because 350 Park's construction loan will be one of the largest in NYC history — ~$4.5B from a consortium of lenders (no single bank can take that exposure alone).
Why development teams care about rates: Construction loans are typically floating rate during the build phase. Higher rates = higher capitalized interest cost during the 4–6 year construction period, which flows directly into total project cost, which directly reduces yield on cost.
The external risk Morgan flagged: Geopolitical events (she cited Iran/Middle East conflict) affect material pricing — steel, aluminum, copper. Steel tariffs under Trump administration already a concern. If material costs rise 15%, that can be $300–400M+ on a project this size. The development team has to feed those assumptions into the financing package when lenders ask questions about cost certainty.
How to talk about this: "I know you're about to go out to the market for the construction financing. In this rate environment, the cost of carry on a 5–6 year build is a meaningful part of total project cost. I'd want to understand how the team is thinking about hedging that exposure — whether through interest rate caps or fixed-rate components — and what the lenders are expecting in terms of cost certainty on the schedule and hard cost assumptions."
The situation: Citadel is the anchor tenant occupying at least 850,000 sf of the 1.8M sf building. That leaves ~950,000 sf of spec tenant space that needs to be leased to other tenants — financial services firms, law firms, tech companies, or any Trophy Park Avenue tenant.
The pro forma dependency: The entire yield on cost calculation depends on achieving underwritten rents on that spec space. If the development team underwrote $150/sf on spec floors and the market softens to $130/sf, that's a meaningful hit to NOI and therefore yield on cost. The development team has to stay in close contact with the leasing team to pressure-test rent assumptions and adjust as the market evolves.
Morgan said: "You would be working with spec tenants to do the organizational work" — meaning TRC coordination, contract review, pricing exercises, tracking what's feasible for each tenant's requests. This is a core component of the associate role.
How you should frame this in the interview: "I understand that the yield on cost on 350 Park depends on achieving the underwritten rents on the spec floors. What I'd want to understand is how the team thinks about the trade-off between accommodating tenant customization requests that might attract higher rents vs. the cost of those TRCs eating into the development budget."
Every question Alan will ask — with full answers
1. "Tell me about your background." +
"I'm a Merchant Marine Academy grad — Kings Point, Class of 2019 — with a background as a Marine Engineer and Navy Reserve officer. After graduation I sailed with Military Sealift Command as an engineer on large vessels, then came back to Kings Point as a Company Officer responsible for 170+ midshipmen. Now I'm at Columbia Business School finishing my first year.
What connects all of it is that in every role I've been managing complex systems across multiple stakeholders under real time pressure — coordinating with shipyards, contractors, government agencies, and technical teams to get things done on schedule and on budget. When I look at what development actually involves — managing GCs, working with city agencies, interfacing with tenants on technical specs, staying on top of a multi-year schedule — it maps almost exactly to what I've done, just applied to buildings instead of ships.
I've also been building my own foundation in real estate — I own a short-term rental property that I manage myself, and I've been taking real estate coursework at Columbia. But I came here specifically because I want to build a long-term career in development, and Vornado and 350 Park are exactly the environment I want to learn in."
2. "Why real estate? Why development specifically?" +
"I've always been drawn to physical assets — things you can touch and see and that have real-world impact. Ships taught me to think about assets in terms of systems: every component affects every other component, and the whole thing has to work together under constraints.
Development is that same challenge at a different scale. You're coordinating architects, engineers, contractors, lawyers, city agencies, and tenants — all of whom have different timelines, different incentives, and different definitions of success. Getting that to work is genuinely hard, which is what makes it interesting to me.
I want development specifically rather than acquisitions or asset management because I want to be involved in creating something, not just buying and managing what already exists. And I want to be in that role at Vornado because 350 Park is going to define Park Avenue for decades. The opportunity to learn how a project of this scale actually gets built — from the ground up — is not something you pass on."
3. "You don't have development experience. Why should I hire you over someone who does?" +
"You're right that I haven't worked in development before, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. What I can tell you is what I do bring.
In Bahrain, I managed a $15M shipyard overhaul coordinating eight departments, external contractors, and port authority inspectors. I had to understand the contracts, track the schedule, manage cost overruns, and make sure everything came together on time. The stakes were high — a ship that isn't operational has real consequences. That's the same pressure structure as development, applied to a different asset class.
I know how to take a direction, go execute independently, and come back with a short focused set of questions when I need clarity — not hand-holding, but targeted questions that move things forward. I know how to read contracts and legal documents and identify what matters. And I know how to interact with technical teams — GCs, engineers, inspectors — and ask the right questions to get real answers.
What I'd ask you to weigh is: the skills that make someone good at this job are mostly transferable. The specific knowledge about development — the jargon, the processes, the NYC-specific regulatory environment — I can learn. Someone who's done this exact job before has the knowledge but might not have the foundation. I'm bringing the foundation."
4. "This is a 7-year project. Are you okay with that?" +
"Honestly, the timeline is one of the things that draws me to it.
On a $100M project you cycle through all the stages in a year and a half. Every process is compressed and you don't really get to understand any of it deeply. On a project like 350 Park, every process matters more — every decision about TRCs, every negotiation with the city, every cost challenge has outsized consequences because of the scale. That's the environment where you actually learn how development works, not just how to run through the motions quickly.
I also want to be somewhere long-term. I'm not looking to get two years of experience and leave. My wife works right here on Park Avenue — I was on-site on Sunday and she texted me saying 'they started construction today.' We're not moving. I want to build a career at Vornado, and starting on the most consequential project the firm has ever done is exactly the foundation I want."
5. "What do you know about 350 Park Avenue?" +
"I've been doing a lot of research on it. A few things I know:
It's going to be approximately 1,800,000 sf, 62 stories, ~1,400 feet tall — designed by Foster + Partners, same firm doing the JPMorgan HQ nearby. Citadel is the anchor tenant occupying at least 850,000 sf, with spec space for the remainder.
On the zoning side — the project went through ULURP starting in March 2025 and got unanimous City Council approval in October 2025, 48–0. That's significant because it was the first new office building presented to the City Planning Commission in five years. To get to 1.8M sf on that block, the team purchased $150M in air rights from St. Patrick's Cathedral and St. Bartholomew's Church, and contributed over $35M to the East Midtown Public Realm Improvement Fund to unlock the zoning bonus. The 12,500 sf public plaza along Park Avenue is part of that deal.
Demolition started in March 2026. The project assembles three existing buildings — 350 Park itself, 40 East 52nd Street (Rudin's building), and 39 East 51st Street.
I also walked the site on Sunday — I could see the construction activity starting. My wife works right on Park Avenue, so she actually texted me that morning saying 'they started.' I've been following this one closely."
6. "How do you handle working with limited direction and figuring things out on your own?" +
"That's honestly the environment I've always worked in. When you get reassigned in the Navy or join a new ship, there's no training program. You show up, you have responsibilities from day one, and you're expected to figure it out. The assumption is that you're competent and will come to people when you actually need something — not ask for everything to be explained upfront.
What I've learned is that the right approach is: take the initial direction, go work through it independently as far as you can, then come back with a focused set of questions that are specific and actionable — not vague, not 'I don't know what to do.' The questions that show you've been thinking, not the ones that show you haven't started.
For a project like 350 Park where every process is long and every component is important, I think that operating mode — take direction, go deep, surface specific questions — is exactly what you need from an associate. I'm not going to be asking you to re-explain the same thing twice."
7. "What do you know about tenant requested changes and how they work?" +
"I've done some research on this. My understanding is that a tenant signs a term sheet for the base building — standard spec like 11-foot ceilings, core bathrooms, standard elevator lobbies. Then as they're actually planning their space a few months in, they come back with requests: marble bathrooms, a digitized elevator lobby, a custom trading floor configuration.
The development team's job at that point is to figure out three things: Is it technically feasible given where the building is in construction? What does it actually cost if the GC does it? And how does the tenant pay — amortized into the rent over a period of years, or as a direct reimbursement?
The complexity is that some requests are straightforward and some aren't — particularly anything involving electrical, elevator systems, or structural modifications. And the timing matters a lot: something that's easy to do at the foundation stage might be impossible once mechanical systems are in.
I see the parallel to what I did with work orders and specification changes in shipbuilding — a scope is agreed, then the operator wants a modification mid-build. You price it, figure out what's feasible within the schedule, negotiate who absorbs it. Same logic. I'd want to get up to speed quickly on the specific NYC construction conventions and what the GC relationships look like on this project."
8. "Where do you see yourself in 5–10 years?" +
"Honestly, right here — working my way up on the development side at Vornado. I want to become someone who understands how to execute a project of this scale end to end. That means understanding the full lifecycle: pre-development, financing, construction management, tenant coordination, stabilization.
I'm not approaching this as a stepping stone to something else. 350 Park is going to be on the New York City skyline for a hundred years. Working on that, learning from you and this team, and building real expertise in large-scale NYC development — that's the career I want to build. I'm not going anywhere."
Questions to ask Alan — use 2–3 of these
On success in the role:
"What would success in this role look like for you in the first six months? What do you need me to be excellent at to support you in the best way?"
On working style:
"How do you prefer to work with your team — independent contributors who report back at milestones, or more day-to-day collaboration? I want to make sure I'm operating in the way that's most useful to you."
On the project timeline:
"You're going out to the market for construction financing soon. How is the team thinking about the rate environment right now — and what's the biggest cost certainty question you expect lenders to push on during that process?"
On spec space strategy:
"I understand Citadel is anchoring the building, but there's significant spec space remaining. How are you thinking about the tenant coordination process for that space — and where do you see the most complexity coming from as you start to engage prospective tenants?"
On learning and growth:
"What's the biggest thing you've had to figure out on this project so far that wasn't in the playbook from prior projects you've worked on?"
On the role itself:
"Beyond 350 Park — Barry's team works across multiple projects. In the first year, how much of my time do you see being on 350 Park vs. getting pulled into other things the development group is working on?"
Things to work in naturally — don't force them
✅ "I walked the site on Sunday" — Say this early when 350 Park comes up. Morgan explicitly said he'll love hearing it. Your wife works on Park Avenue and texted you that morning that construction had started. This is genuine, not performative.
✅ The ski/outdoor connection — If it comes up organically. Morgan said he's into skiing and outdoor sports. Don't force it, but if there's a natural moment, a passing reference to something outdoors can build rapport.
✅ Your Bahrain shipyard story — Frame it as: $15M overhaul, 8 departments, external contractors, port authority. Emphasize: coordinating across stakeholders, managing to a schedule, reading contracts, tracking costs. This is your "I've done complex project management" proof point.
✅ "I'm a quick learner and I dive deep" — Morgan's exact framing: "just because you don't know something doesn't mean you don't know how to be inquisitive about the topic." You don't need to have done it before — you need to show you'll go figure it out and come back with the right questions.
✅ Long-term commitment — Work this in naturally: "My wife works right here on Park Avenue. We're not going anywhere. I want to build a career in development and this is exactly where I want to do it."
What not to say — Morgan was explicit
❌ Don't mention wanting to start your own firm or be your own developer. He doesn't want to train someone for 7 years and watch them walk. Even if that's true long-term, it's not relevant here and not what he wants to hear.
❌ Don't over-lean on Airbnb. Morgan said it's "relevant-ish" but Alan doesn't run one and won't find it as compelling as she does. Mention it once if relevant, don't make it a centerpiece.
❌ Don't ask for too much explanation or hand-holding in your framing. He wants someone who takes direction and figures things out. Anything that sounds like "I'd need a lot of guidance at first" is the wrong message.
❌ Don't mention cap rates as VNO's primary metric. Morgan was explicit: VNO development uses yield on cost, not cap rates. If you say "so at a 6% cap rate..." you'll sound like you didn't do your homework.
❌ Don't go too deep into the labor force / on-site workers. Morgan was clear: you never interact with the actual labor force. The development team works with the GC who manages that. Know the distinction.