Chestnut Holdings — Portfolio Repositioning & Leasing Strategy

Assignment Overview — What It Is

Cornerstone was retained to reposition and re-lease a 187-asset, 1M+ SF mixed-use and commercial portfolio for Chestnut Holdings, a national real estate investment firm. The mandate required full portfolio underwriting, multi-market leasing execution, and cross-functional advisory support to restore performance across underleveraged assets.

Result: Executed 85 commercial leases in 18 months, generating $6M+ annual recurring revenue and reducing commercial vacancy by 20%, establishing a new operational benchmark for the organization.

Client Objectives — Why It Mattered

Ownership required a single institutional advisor to replace fragmented brokerage oversight and:

• Reestablish accountability and standardize leasing operations
• Improve NOI, underwriting accuracy, and deal economics
• Accelerate deal velocity across a large, diverse portfolio
• Integrate leasing with construction, marketing, and property management
• Build an internal system capable of reducing downtime and sustaining performance

The assignment demanded both execution capacity and organizational restructuring to create repeatable leasing discipline.

Market Realities — What We Were Solving For

Portfolio-Level Constraints

• Mispriced assets and underperforming trade areas
• Inconsistent marketing deployment and weak lead flow
• Prolonged downtime between tenants

Organizational Constraints

• Cross-departmental misalignment and approval delays
• No unified leasing platform or KPI visibility
• Inefficient capital workflow and construction bottlenecks

Risk Profile

• NOI erosion and capital inefficiency
• Tenant churn and suboptimal renewals
• Strategy fragmentation across 187 properties

Advisory Strategy — How We Solved It

We implemented a portfolio-wide institutional leasing system grounded in analytics, underwriting discipline, and operational governance:

• Performed an asset-level and portfolio-wide diagnostic integrating rent rolls, market comps, historic absorption, and credit strength
• Recalibrated rents, repositioning strategies, and merchandising priorities across trade areas
• Deployed a layered tenant outreach model combining proprietary prospecting databases, curated broker networks, and direct national brand engagement
• Applied scenario-based financial modeling to evaluate rent feasibility, capital impact, credit profiles, and NOI contribution
• Built cross-functional workflows aligning leasing, marketing, construction, and property management around standardized pre-market processes and measurable KPIs

This created a repeatable, cross-functional leasing infrastructure instead of a deal-by-deal approach.

Execution — What We Did

Execution was delivered through centralized governance and multi-department coordination:

• Directed 94 landlord-led RFP and bid processes to align scopes, budgets, and delivery timelines
• Oversaw 85 tenant build-outs, reviewing drawings, managing design approvals, and ensuring delivery compliance
• Modernized marketing operations, deploying digital advertising and engineered collateral that increased qualified tenant leads by 358%
• Streamlined internal deal processes, improving leasing velocity through structured negotiation frameworks and standardized pipeline governance
• Managed a leasing platform overseeing 1M+ SF and led a team responsible for achieving consistent outperformance against portfolio benchmarks

The program produced an average 120–150 day lease-up cycle, materially faster than prior results.

Results — What Happened

• 85 commercial leases executed
• $61M+ aggregate lease value
• $6M+ annual recurring revenue generated
• 20% vacancy reduction
• 90% tenant retention (57 renewals)
• 84% of all leases executed in-house
• 94 construction RFPs governed
• 358% increase in qualified tenant leads

Impact — Why It Worked

The program reestablished leasing as a performance-driven commercial platform, restoring operational discipline and materially improving portfolio economics.

Key impacts included:

• Higher NOI through improved rent calibration and reduced downtime
• Strengthened tenant credit quality through structured qualification
• Increased portfolio stability through proactive renewals
• Institutionalized workflows that now support multi-state expansion and future acquisitions
• Enhanced lender, partner, and tenant perception across key trade areas

The engagement delivered not only immediate financial gains but a durable, scalable leasing framework embedded into Chestnut Holdings’ long-term asset-management strategy.