Leith ter Meulen
Landair
Real Estate
Leith ter Meulen is a leading development management consultant to institutional, government and commercial owners involved with public private initiatives, aligning clients’ business objectives with their real estate needs. As a consultant and trustee, she has been advising not-for-profit organizations in the arts, education and preservation toward strategic, value added business goals for more than 35 years. Her experience reflects a deep emphasis and broad portfolio of projects with a focus on ‘quality of life’ public private partnerships that bring the arts, education, public space and preservation to communities.
Ms. ter Meulen is recognized for her participation in several of the tri-state region’s most visible urban redevelopments like the renewal of Times Square and post 9/11 Lower Manhattan in New York, as well as leading and garnering wide public and political support of the plan for the Channel Arts District in Tampa. Working in tandem with Amy Kaufman, she and her team directed the consultancy to evaluate and recommend the governance strategy for the proposed National Museum of the American Latino in Washington, DC. Ms. ter Meulen regularly advises arts organizations as diverse as the Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum, Brooklyn Children’s Museum, New-York Historical Society, Lincoln Center, Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation, 651 ARTs and the Museum of Contemporary African Diaspora (MoCADA).
Her experience as an at-risk developer offers her non profit clients a uniquely savvy perspective on evaluating and negotiating favorable terms and win-win results on transactions with private developers. In addition, Ms. ter Meulen has assisted dozens of arts organizations navigate the complex array of government funding and regulatory approvals. Her team brings expertise in economic incentives and P3 strategies (New Market, Low Income Housing and Historic Tax Credits and Opportunity Zone investing).
Experience Highlights
Prior to her private sector experience Ms. ter Meulen brings 10 years of senior management experience in the public sector for facilities development and management for New York City’s Agency for Child Development, including responsibility for managing 6 million of real estate dedicated to early childhood care and education and for whom she introduced city wide management efficiencies to speed repairs and lower costs on 400 facilities.
For the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, she was responsible for planning, development and management oversight of capital improvements to 32 city owned cultural institutions, ranging from fragile historic houses to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as 1200 acres of special use public lands, including parks, zoos, aquarium and marinas, and restoration sites.
Her accomplishments included strategic application of public and private funding mechanisms, within a complex political landscape, to generate over $1 billion in funded projects, as well as establishing the agency’s first capital planning management tools.