Jared Della Valle, AIA, of Alloy, was very open with the sizable audience at his breakout session during Reinvention 2011. “Real estate development is very personal,” said the New York architect and developer who recently left his former firm, Della Valle Bernheimer, to start a new development company, Alloy. “You have to be 100 percent invested in your own project in order to sell. That’s when people perceive your value, is in your own confidence.”
Della Valle explained the setup of his new company and how he goes about putting together a project. For him, it’s about having control of the projects and being able to create the buildings he wants to create. “The whole reason I became a developer was so I get to choose what stays and goes in the value engineering,” he said.
He showed the audience images of an on-the-boards mixed-use project with a kinetic copper façade, as well as a completed loft conversion building in Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood. “You’ve got to be prepared to take the risk,” Della Valle warned. “The whole thing relies on you trusting your instinct.”