CONSULTANTS / DEVELOPERS / INVESTORS
DISCREET CLIENTELE WITH OFF-MARKET RELATIONSHIPS
Acorn Capital Development, LLC is a real estate development and investment firm based out of Jersey City, New Jersey. Acorn has a portfolio of properties it owns and/or has developed in Northern New Jersey ranging from duplexes to 350 units of apartment buildings. Acorn is currently involved in several joint ventures developing larger projects in New Jersey with a concentration on Essex, Hudson, and Passaic Counties. The goal of Acorn is to expand its portfolio of income producing properties, focusing on opportunities to improve urban municipalities with meaningful planned development.
MEET THE TEAM
Mr. Guilford has had a varied career in many aspects of business in addition to being a real estate investor. Before forming Acorn Capital Development, Mr. Guilford was a National Account Manager for Comverse Infosys, the leading provider of full-time digital recording solutions in the United States. Prior to that Mr. Guilford spent nearly ten years at Lucent Technologies/AT&T as the Senior National Account Manager. Where he learned to manage relationships for New Business Development, and spearheaded Lucent Technologies new business effort. Duane was the Top Performer for New Business Development in New York in 96’, 97’, and 98’, and was the top account manager nationwide in 99’. Mr. Guilford was also appointed to The Lucent Technologies Leaders Council in 2000 representing the top 1% of the sales force nationally.
MR. GUILFORD HAS A B.A. IN BOTH ECONOMICS AND JOURNALISM FROM RUTGERS UNIVERSITY AND IS A LICENSED REAL ESTATE BROKER
As an entrepreneur, Mr. Guilford has owned and operated several restaurants including a Sport Bar, as well as a Night Club and Wine Boutique. Mr. Guilford also owned and operated a Prudential Real Estate Franchise in Downtown Jersey City. His career as an entrepreneur began when he joined the start-up team for People Express Airline, where he worked in Management Development teaching corporate philosophy to new and existing managers. Mr. Guilford started his professional career in the entertainment business at CBS Records.
Keith Kinard dedicated 23 years to public and assisted housing as a CEO in the government sector while also co-founding a private development firm-Far Oaks Community Development.
Mr. Kinard served as Executive Director of the Newark Housing Authority (NHA), the largest housing authority in New Jersey (8,000 apartments and 5,550 Housing Choice Vouchers), where he oversaw the development and rehabilitation of over 900 new homes across the City of Newark. These award-winning projects were created using a wide array of development sources including, but not limited to, 9 and 4% tax credits, tax-exempt bond equity, HUD CFFP, FHA and RHF funds, Federal Home Loan Bank proceeds, private equity and various boutique grant programs. The developments are mixed-income affordable with Project Based Vouchers and LIHTC units covering a majority of the apartments. In addition, the developments added over 20,000 square feet of commercial space to their respective neighborhoods. During Mr. Kinard’s tenure the NHA also completed a Choice Neighborhood Transformation Plan, constructed three new educational, training and athletic enrichment centers totaling 75,000 square feet and performed 130 million dollars in energy conservation upgrades portfolio wide.
Before joining the NHA, Mr. Kinard was the Executive Director of the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh (HACP), the second largest affordable housing agency in Pennsylvania (5,000 apartments and 7,200 Housing Choice Vouchers). During his tenure at HACP, Mr. Kinard helped to create in excess of 1,200 affordable housing units utilizing HUD’s former HOPE VI program and LIHTC’s. The newly created developments house individuals, families and senior citizens who range from extremely low income to market rate renters.
- Master of Public Administration – Baruch College, New York, NY (1995)
- Bachelor of Science – Delaware University, Dover, DE (1981)
Since 2001, Mr. Belmont serves as the principal of Belmont Consulting Services and Managing Partner of Sunnyside Holdings, LLC a business real estate development company for various affordable housing and mixed use developments. There, has overall responsibility for the supervision of all company operations, business development & marketing.
Mr. Belmont’s innovative approach is to work with clients to professionally assess their financial positions, needs, and goals; to analyze and project realistic costs and values of clients’ projects; and, to directly procure the best available financing for the client from a myriad of housing grants, Low-Income-Housing Tax Credits, and other government grant resources.
More than merely providing business development services, Mr. Belmont works closely with clients to analyze and coordinate development and financing strategies, budget and operating projections and analysis, property data and evaluation, market competition, and, investment decision-making among the clients’ and investors’ principals, accountants, legal counsels, appraisers, and, investment and lending underwriters.
Mr. Belmont formerly served as Executive Vice President of Credit and underwriting for three (3) years at Health Care Capital Resources, Inc. (HCR) a subsidiary of Lehman Brothers. HCR was a New York-based full service real estate lender which focused exclusively on the healthcare industry. Mr. Belmont’s responsibilities included managing both the credit function and underwriting of new transactions, and day-to-day management of the company’s $200 million portfolio.
