Specialized Real Estate Group supports growth with senior leadership hires
by February 13, 2019 3:56 pm 1,285 views
Lawrence Finn and Rebecca Burkes have been hired by Specialized Real Estate Group as vice presidents.
Specialized Real Estate Group (SREG), a privately held development company headquartered in downtown Fayetteville, has added to its senior leadership team. Lawrence Finn is the company’s new vice president of real estate development and Rebecca Burkes is vice president of internal operations.
“As we work to meet our region’s need for thoughtful homes, workplaces, and gathering places, I’m confident that Lawrence and Rebecca’s combined skills will allow us to scale to meet those needs, while deepening our commitment to build healthy places that connect people to neighbors and nature,” SREG CEO Jeremy Hudson said in a statement.
Finn has three decades of experience in the construction and development industry. Before joining SREG, Lawrence was managing partner of his own real estate development and consulting firm, Dakota Development. Recent projects include the mixed-use neighborhood of Mission Heights in Fayetteville, which he and his team revived from dormancy, and residential and commercial projects in North Little Rock and Conway.
Finn was also previously chief operating officer of the Village at Hendrix, a 92-acre, “new urban” community at Hendrix College in Conway.
Burkes has more than 25 years of experience in law, operations, and real estate development. She spent the early part of her career as corporate counsel at Walmart Inc. and then as co-founder and manager of a diversified real estate development, construction and brokerage company with 28 agents which developed multiple multi-story office buildings, built over 125 homes, and had annual sales of approximately $70 million.
Burkes also worked as an assistant professor of management at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and an assistant clinical professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School’s Law and Entrepreneurship Clinic. For the past three years, Burkes was deputy director and general counsel at the Department of Arkansas Heritage, a state agency with over 200 employees.
A company spokeswoman said SREG now has 25 full-time employees. The firm’s most significant project right now is multimillion-dollar mixed-use development near downtown Bentonville called Brick Avenue Lofts.
About 60% of the 11.2-acre property will consist of mostly three-story apartment buildings, according to SREG, with 252 one- and two-bedroom units. The remainder will consist of four-story buildings used by a mixture of office, retail or commercial tenants.
The residential units are expected to be completed by early summer.
SREG also developed the mixed-use Uptown Fayetteville Apartments+Shops. The 308 residential units of that 14-acre property sold last year for $55.6 million.