President, Halcyon Ltd. Real Estate Advisors
Director, Columbia University Real Estate Development Program
As an educator, Michael Buckley serves as Director of Columbia University's MSc in Real Estate Development Program in New York City, where he is responsible for coordinating Curriculum, Faculty, and Student Internships. He teaches core courses in Repositioning Strategies, and The Columbia Roundtable Series, which convenes senior industry executives around current real estate Issues. Prof. Buckley also heads the new Center for High Density Development to support research into the largely unproven and unexplored benefits of High Density Development on Infrastructure, Fiscal Impacts, Workplace Efficiency and Value Creation.
As a consulting urban expert, Michael Buckley is President of Halcyon Ltd. Real Estate Advisors, a Strategy and Development Advisory firm which serves developers, owners, corporations, financial institutions, pension funds and cities, and has earned a national reputation for Mixed-Use Retail, Conceptual Development and Strategic Planning for large projects and under-utilized sites. Halcyon Ltd. is also regarded as expert in Asset Re-Positioning, with property turnaround assignments for private developers, institutional investors and foreign pension funds.
Buckley has substantial domestic and international urban planning and development experience as a former Partner, Ernst & Young as National Director Real Estate Consulting, and currently as President of Halcyon Ltd. Real Estate Advisors, Prof. Buckley has worked on numerous City Revitalization Strategies including NYC's Lower Manhattan Development Corp as Retail Advisor for rebuilding Lower Manhattan. He is advising on the repositioning of Washington's SE Federal Center site on the Anacostia Riverfront. Other Strategic Planning work has included the revitalization of NYC Times Square, the new plan for Pennsylvania Station, the City of Moscow's Manezhnaya Ploschad shopping complex adjacent Red Square, and Puerto Rico's San Juan Harbor master plan.
For corporations such as Pitney Bowes, he serves as advisor regarding corporate holdings. Consulting experience on Corporate Headquarters includes Citicorp Center, NationsBank/ B of A, Owens Illinois, PPG Industries, and AT&T. Other portfolio or large-scale project reviews for Institutional clients have included Prudential, Equitable, Aetna Real Estate, La Caixa of Spain, , The New Haven Foundation, and The Travelers Corp.
A former Trustee of the Urban Land Institute, and Vice-Chair of the ULI NYC District Council, Buckley is now a member of the National Realty Committee's Research Group. He is also former Chairman of ULI's Urban Development Mixed-Use Council, and the annual ULI Trends Conference. Prof. Buckley an experienced speaker on Development Trends and Strategic Issues---both in the USA for civic organizations such as the Central Dallas Association and for professional organizations such as ICSC's Leading Edge Conference in Vail for senior executives, and The American Institute of Architects in Denver on City Revitalization. International presentations have iincluded SAPOA in South Africa, MIPIM in Cannes, France, The Barcelona Meeting Point and Immotour in Seville, Spain, the ULI Global Conference in Paris, Ernst & Young Australia, and BOMA of New Zealand.
Previous to his Columbia position, Prof Buckley served on the faculty of MIT's Center for Real Estate, and as guest lecturer at Yale, Kellogg School and Rice University. Author of numerous professional articles on Retail Mixed-Use, Creative Design Management, and Urban Revitalization, he is Past President, Connecticut Society of Architects. He has served on the National Endowment For The Arts selection panel, and for the NEA's Mayor's Institute at Univ. of Virginia. For work with Cities and Mixed-Use Retail Urban Developments, he was chosen as Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. He holds BA and BSc Degrees from Rice University, and a Masters Degree in Advanced Studies from MIT.
Michael P. Buckley