Apollo RIDA, Poland
ChampionsGate, Florida
Hilton, Orlando
See Fox Business News video of Ira Mitzner, President of RIDA Development Corporation
See Wall Street Journal cover story on David Mitzner, founder of RIDA Development
EUROBUILD Awards "Lifetime Achievement Award" awarded to David Mitzner, and "Investment Deal of the Decade" awarded to Apollo-RIDA Poland
Please click here for contact information for the home office and various regional offices of RIDA Development Corporation.
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| David Mitzner |
By strictly adhering to this philosophy, which guided David Mitzner to establish the company in 1972, RIDA Development Corporation has achieved an international reputation for creating innovative, high quality and - above all - economically successful real estate.
Headquartered in Houston Texas, with major operating divisions in Florida, and Europe, RIDA's principal officers, David Mitzner, Jacob Mitzner and Ira Mitzner have assembled a dedicated and highly competent team of outstanding professionals to create and maintain a quality - and ever expanding-real estate portfolio.
RIDA, the managing partner of Apollo-RIDA Poland, (and a strategic partner to AREA Property Partners, formerly known as Apollo Real Estate Advisors) is among Poland's largest and most well known private real estate investment groups. The Polish portfolio alone, owned and managed by RIDA includes over eight million square feet and is valued at over $2 billion. In addition, RIDA is an experienced owner developer in Germany, Russia and the Ukraine, as the managing partner of over three million square feet in those countries.
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| Jacob, David, Ira Mitzner |
In the United States, RIDA has become one of the South's most active development groups, with an additional $2 billion under development or in final planning.
Worldwide, RIDA today is the current managing partner of, and is currently developing retail, office, distribution, residential, hotel, and mixed use land developments with a total value in excess of $5 billion.
The pages that follow focus on RIDA's expertise in each of its project sectors, highlight specific examples of outstanding and innovative development achievements, and detail the "RIDA Philosophy" of real estate.
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By Nancy Sarnoff, Houston Chronicle | October 5, 2012
HOUSTON, TX -- For decades, Houston- based RIDA Development Corp. has operated largely under the radar in its hometown. But recently, the family-run real estate firm was thrust into the local spotlight when its development proposal was selected for a 1,000-room convention center hotel in downtown.
The company hasn't tried to stay out of local headlines intentionally, said president Ira Mitzner, explaining that most of its projects are in other places.
"We are so excited to be doing something at home," he said.
Founded by Mitzner's father, David Mitzner, RIDA has amassed a multibillion-dollar real estate portfolio with major holdings in Florida and Poland.
The elder Mitzner was born in Warsaw and emigrated to New York after World War II.
Prior to coming to the United States, he spent eight years in a Russian prison camp and lost both parents in the Holocaust.
In New York, he was first a hosiery manufacturer. He started a real estate business in 1972, which he moved to Houston in 1980.
Mitzner - now in his 90s - splits his time between Warsaw and Houston. When he's here, he comes into the office every day, his son said.
A family of deep faith, the Mitzners are active in Houston's Jewish community as well as in Holocaust remembrance efforts in Israel and Washington.
Over the last decade, the company has ramped up its U.S. convention center hotel business. It's been involved in the development of a handful of properties, including a 1,400-room Hilton in Orlando and the recently rebuilt 1,200-room Hyatt in New Orleans.
RIDA was chosen to move forward with exclusive negotiations to build the hotel because it offered the "most competitive proposal," said Ric Campo, chairman of Houston First, the group behind the effort.
The proposed hotel would span around 1 mil- lion square feet and make a striking mark on the city's eastern skyline, Ira Mitzner said.
The building site is just across Discovery Green from the Hilton Americas-Houston. A skybridge would connect it to the George R. Brown Convention Center.
Houston First, which owns the Hilton and manages the convention center and other city buildings, has an option to purchase the land for the hotel from the Houston Endowment.
The property would feature a resort-style deckfor outdoor activities as well as multiple restaurant and retail venues designed to encourage pedestrian activity in and around the hotel.
Houston First initiated the effort to build the hotel because, it said, more rooms would help the city attract bigger conventions. Earlier this year, the group solicited qualifications from developers and designers. RIDA was one of 11 teams that responded.
The RIDA team includes Houston-based Morris Architects and Looney & Associates of Dallas for interior design. Florida-based Welbro Building Corp. is expected to partner with a local general contractor to build the tower.
The building's design "creates the kind of buzz we're trying to create in the neighborhood," Campo said.
At the beginning of the year, Houston First announced a sweeping plan to transformthe eastern part of downtown into a more vibrant neighborhood where buildings are developed on vacant lots and shops and restaurants line the streets leading up to the convention center.
"The strategy is to see how to create more on the ground than just the hotel," Mitzner said.
On the financial side, RIDA will partner with AREA Property Partners, a New York fund management firmformerly known as Apollo Real Estate Advisors. The firm has provided equity on numerous RIDA developments.
The cost to build the hotel is expected to be in the $350 million range, but details are still being negotiated and have not been released. The hotel is expected to be privately financed; it is also likely to receive tax rebates from the city and state.
Mitzner said the company is in discussions with hotel operators and expects to pick one in the next 90 days.
He anticipates spending about another year in the design phase and breaking ground on the hotel in early 2014. Construction is likely to take around two years.
"The Final Four is in April of 2016," he said, "and we would love to be one of the host hotels."
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