Martin Schiffman

Martin Schiffman, Managing Member , World Trade Center Chicago

Martin Schiffman is the President of Schiffman Consulting Corp, having founding the company in 1983. Mr. Schiffman’s primary specialty is in the area of urban economic development. He has a notable track record in the concepting, planning, designing and developing over a billion dollars of urban reclamation and value-added projects. He has made investments in, or studied, a significant number of global and domestic markets. This would include making investments in approximately 35 markets in the United States as the Managing Principal of the development entities. Since 1989, in connection with his activities on behalf of World Trade Center of Greater Philadelphia and the global World Trade Centers Association he has studied other important cities in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, totaling approximately 40 localities. Mr. Schiffman has skills in the important disciplines governing economic development in urban areas: state and local competitiveness within the United States; the role of zoning and land use regulation on residential and commercial development; the effect of tax policies on localities; the effect of regulation on localities; the role played by municipal labor unions in urban management; the effect of tourism and convention centers in the economic life of cities; the role played by World Trade Centers in local economic development through increased global trade; the effect that cultural institutions have on the urban framework such as museums, art and theatre centers, aquariums, sports stadiums, and universities; the role of municipal finance and legacy costs in state and local fiscal management; and the influence of public education and security on residential and business location throughout urban environments.

Mr. Schiffman is a licensed real estate broker in the State of New York. He has a PhD-equivalent Masters Degree in Urban Planning from New York University and has spoken frequently on the subject of transformative projects at industry conferences, economic development councils, and numerous redevelopment forums. He also speaks and regularly participates with important places of academic excellence such as Columbia University, Temple University, Stockton University, and Drexel University. He has been a member of the Urban Land Institute for nearly thirty years, and is also a member of the Young Men’s/Women’s Real Estate Association of New York, the World Trade Centers Association, The Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, the Southern New Jersey Chamber of Commerce, and the Philadelphia Development Workshop. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of World Trade Center of Greater Philadelphia, for whom he runs the Project Development Group, and World Trade Center Chicago, of which he is Managing Member.

His career has been spent in senior management positions with Sonnenblick-Goldman Advisory Corp. (a major real estate investment manager), Lehman Brothers and the New York-based investment firm of Carl Marks & Co.

In connection with Mr. Schiffman’s management of significant urban redevelopment investments in the U.S. he has managed development projects in important districts such as;

• the North Tribeca Historic District (NYC);
• Central Boston Waterfront/Financial District;
• the Bunker Hill Redevelopment District (Los Angeles);
• Philadelphia’s Central Riverfront District;
• Town of Islip (Long Island, New York) Industrial Development Authority
• the Glen Cove Redevelopment District (Long Island, NY), and
• the Pierce County Master Planning District (State of Washington)

His leadership in redeveloping an historic downtown hotel in St. Louis’ Washington Avenue Redevelopment District won an award from the St. Louis Historical Preservation Society.