Sustainability with Laura Rapaport

You’ll gain insight into playing an innovative role in real estate in this conversation with Laura Rapaport. Laura is the founder and CEO of North Bridge, a company offering financing solutions that serve the intersection of real estate, technology, and sustainability. North Bridge is a one-stop-shop for clients nationwide and covers all asset classes, providing support to both improve the built environment and create a greener future.
When she started out, Laura initially took on an internship in real estate prior to her freshman year of college. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and began her career at Lehman Brothers in their Global Real Estate Group in London. She later served as a Director in the New York development group of Tishman Speyer. Laura received an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and went on to become a Managing Director at L&L Holding Company, an owner-operator and developer in New York City. There she was a key member of the leadership team for almost a decade, and her roles included running capital raising and serving as Development Manager of 425 Park Avenue.
Today her company North Bridge specializes in sustainable real estate solutions by providing financing through C-PACE (Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy). C-PACE is a flexible form of ESG financing which allows borrowers to access low-cost, long-term, fixed-rate, pre-payable funding in exchange for making sustainable improvements to buildings. It facilitates energy efficiency, water efficiency, structural resilience, and renewable measures. Borrowers who qualify can use the capital proactively, or they can apply it retroactively to strengthen a capital stack. C-PACE may be used for a variety of functions, including large scale renovations, new construction, acquisition financing, refinancing, and rescue capital.
Based on her experience and background, founding North Bridge “plays to my strengths of being entrepreneurial, but having an institutional expertise and understanding to translate and bring everything together,” Laura says. For someone interested in real estate who wants to help create a more sustainable environment, she adds, “I think there’s a tremendous opportunity to innovate…there will be more products that have not even been thought of or created that will help all of us make that a reality.”
You can connect with Laura through LinkedIn and her company website North Bridge.

You can connect with Laura through LinkedIn and her company website North Bridge.
I’m always happy to connect with listeners—you can find me online at:My website: JamesNelson.comLinkedIn: JamesNelsonNYCInstagram: JamesNelsonNYC Twitter: JamesNelsonNYCMy Real Estate Weekly articles: REW-online.com/author/jamesnelsonMy Forbes.com articles: Forbes.com/sites/jamesnelson

Thanks for Listening!