Alex Samoylovich, co-founder of CEDARst Companies, a developer who revives distressed and historic buildings. He discusses leaning into adaptive reuse and historic tax credits, stacking creative capital structures, scaling a local redeveloper into a national platform, and practical AI uses for leasing and operations. Short, strategic takes on finding opportunity where others avoid complexity.
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insights INSIGHT
Vertical Integration Built The Platform
Alex Samoylovich turned early foreclosure and distressed-debt experience into a vertically integrated development model.
Vertical integration gave recurring revenue and control needed to scale adaptive reuse projects.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Historic Credits Fueled Big Rehab Deals
Cedar Street used historic tax credits to unlock large-scale rehab economics and sell credits to banks at ~90¢ on the dollar.
Selling credits in advance created synthetic equity that let them do much bigger projects with less cash up front.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Lawrence House Became A Breakthrough Project
The Lawrence House in Uptown was a high-crime, 344-unit hotel conversion that became a signature asset after long effort and community change.
Converting hotels to micro-units with hospitality-style amenities birthed the Flats brand and higher rent-per-square-foot economics.
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Season 5, Episode 6: In this episode of Season 5, Jack and Alex are joined by Alex Samoylovich, co-founder of CEDARst Companies, a developer known for leaning into projects most operators avoid. Alex walks through how CEDARst was built by focusing on adaptive reuse, historic redevelopment, and complex deals that require creativity across both capital and execution.
The conversation digs into why complexity became the strategy, how overlooked buildings turned into scalable opportunities, and what actually breaks deals when markets tighten. A grounded look at development from someone who’s spent years solving hard problems, not chasing easy ones.
Shoutout to our sponsor, Bracket. The AI platform transforming how we underwrite deals.
TOPICS
00:00 – Intro and Setting the Stage
05:20 – Alex’s Nontraditional Path Into Development
09:40 – Early Deals and Learning Through Adaptive Reuse
15:30 – Why Complexity Became the Strategy
21:10 – Capital Stacks, Risk, and Creative Structuring
27:40 – Scaling From Local Projects to a National Platform
33:50 – Markets, Mistakes, and Hard Lessons
40:20 – Where Adaptive Reuse Still Works
46:30 – What Development Looks Like From Here
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About No Cap Podcast
Commercial real estate is a $20 trillion industry and a force that shapes America’s economic fabric and culture. No Cap by CRE Daily is the commercial real estate podcast that gives you an unfiltered ”No Cap” look into the industry’s biggest trends and the money game behind them. Each week co-hosts Jack Stone and Alex Gornik break down the latest headlines with some of the most influential and entertaining figures in commercial real estate.
About CRE Daily
CRE Daily is a digital media company covering the business of commercial real estate. Our mission is to empower professionals with the knowledge they need to make smarter decisions and do more business. We do this through our flagship newsletter (CRE Daily) which is read by 65,000+ investors, developers, brokers, and business leaders across the country. Our smart brevity format combined with need-to-know trends has made us one of the fastest growing media brands in commercial real estate.
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