Goizueta alumnus Jim Irwin 07MBA, the developer behind Ponce City Market, shares his creative approach to real estate ahead of a November 12 conversation on Atlanta’s urban future hosted by Goizueta’s BL Harbert Real Estate Center.
From English major to Congressional aide to real estate developer, Jim Irwin 07MBA has followed a career path filled with serendipitous moments and influential mentors. As a junior at Dartmouth College, Irwin participated in a summer internship on Capitol Hill. Fueled by the thrill of such a vibrant city and experience, Irwin moved to D.C. after college and served as a legislative aide to two senators and a member of the House of Representatives. He worked in the mailroom then as a personal driver before being encouraged by former senator Phil Gramm to go to business school.
That encouragement ultimately led Irwin to a career that seems tailor-made for his interests. Today, Irwin is the president of New City Properties, a commercial real estate development firm that focuses on adaptive reuse of old buildings.
“The role I have and what I get to do every day with my colleagues is pure creation. The things that excite me are what we haven’t discovered yet, what’s around the corner, and how can we take what we’ve done and get better at it—do it in ways that are different and unique,” says Irwin. “We’re responsible for understanding what’s changing in the world and how people work and live.”
Heading Home
Irwin and his wife, Elisabeth Irwin 07MBA, are both from Atlanta and attended Goizueta’s Two-Year MBA program at the same time.
“Those two years at Goizueta actually changed the trajectory of my life completely,” says Irwin. “I knew I needed time of patient discovery. It wasn’t about a credential. It was about surrounding myself with incredible people, learning new things, and having that respite from day-to-day work to take what I didn’t know about myself and find an avenue where I could apply those things.”
During his time at Goizueta, Irwin experienced another fateful internship; this time at a real estate company. The CEO at the time owned several minor league baseball teams. Because of his background in politics, Irwin was tasked with facilitating the building of a new stadium for a team in Indiana.
“It was this neat public-private partnership that played off things I had done in Washington,” says Irwin. “It was an amazing entrée into the world of real estate development.”
When the internship ended, the folks Irwin had been working with all summer were distraught that he was going back to school, so much so that Irwin ended up continuing part-time during his second year as a full-time student—“an intense year.”
“It was such a fun moment of discovery, where…it’s like the clouds part and the sun shines in. I felt like I was really discovering something that I was good at and interested in. It really sparked my imagination,” says Irwin. “I never really thought of myself as an artist, but I learned the tools of creativity while I’m taking all of these amazing finance classes from these incredible professors.”
Those two years at Goizueta actually changed the trajectory of my life completely. I knew I needed time of patient discovery. It wasn’t about a credential. It was about surrounding myself with incredible people, learning new things, and having that respite from day-to-day work to take what I didn’t know about myself and find an avenue where I could apply those things.
Jim Irwin 07MBA
As a result of the internship, Irwin was guided into the first cohort of students in Goizueta’s real estate concentration.
“[I was] surrounded by such excellent people who were so generous and willing to say, ‘Hey, I think you’d be really good at this,’” recalls Irwin. “The initial gift was being given a project so out of the box, working on a minor league baseball stadium.”
Creating Spaces That Matter
As an English major in college, Irwin was drawn to the power of storytelling. Today, he tells stories through the built environment, transforming older spaces while preserving their history and inviting new generations to experience them.
“We live in a time…where there are things stripping away at our ability to think and just be in our own bodies in the present to create, communicate, commune. It’s an incredible privilege to be able to think and dream about places where people will spend their lives,” explains Irwin.
New City Properties focuses specifically on older buildings, dating back 100 years or more. Irwin says, “One of the things that has always fascinated me about adaptive reuse is that it provides an anchoring context.”
Whether the company is working on a new hotel, apartment, office space, or commercial building, Irwin describes the work as making a place for people to interact with “things that have this sense of permanence in place” and creating opportunities for curiosity and awe.
Irwin has overseen more than $2.5 billion in real estate investments in his career thus far. During his tenure at Jamestown, where he was senior vice president, he led the development of Ponce City Market.
“I was incredibly privileged to work for a company like Jamestown that allowed us to have creative license and also had the capacity to take on a project of that scale,” says Irwin.
We live in a time where there are things stripping away at our ability to think and just be in our own bodies in the present to create, communicate, commune. It’s an incredible privilege to be able to think and dream about places where people will spend their lives.
Jim Irwin 07MBA
Prior to this point, Atlanta had a reputation for tearing down old buildings and starting fresh. While the city was able to move quickly, it came at the cost of historic structures and culture. The Ponce City Market project had two goals: Restore an existing structure and create a space where the city could gather—something that was lacking in Atlanta. At the same time, the Atlanta BeltLine project was underway, which Irwin jokes was a saving grace, a “chicken or the egg” scenario. Both projects would have been successful individually, but combined, they skyrocketed in popularity. The Ponce City Market project not only revitalized a historic structure but also helped spur redevelopment throughout Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward neighborhood, where the office of New City Properties is located.
This neighborhood is also where Irwin’s business, New City Properties, began. Real estate development is inherently entrepreneurial: Every project is its own business, so creating his own company in 2016 after the Ponce City Market project just made sense. The company’s first project was the reconstruction of an existing Kroger, moving it closer to the BeltLine.
“We can work on adaptive reuse projects and new construction but do it in a way that’s contextual and human-centric. That’s really the beating heart of what we do: human-centric development,” says Irwin. “It’s all centered around this simple question of how would you like to go to work or live in a beautiful place where you actually want to be.”
Over the last decade, the company has worked on projects in both Georgia and Tennessee, and Irwin spends his days putting both his left and right brain to work, juggling creative ideas with the physics and finances that make a project possible.
“I really hope that people who are getting into real estate development recognize the power and privilege of being able to build places for people and to recognize that it’s a creative act.”
What’s next for Atlanta’s built environment? Join Jim Irwin on November 12 for Building the City Within the City, a panel discussion hosted by Goizueta’s BL Harbert Real Estate Center exploring the future of mixed-use development, placemaking, and urban redevelopment in Atlanta. Learn more and register for the event.
