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Aerial view of downtown Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin: a four-story mixed-use building on the waterfront, the steel bridge and marina beyond, fall color along the street

Real Estate Development + Strategy

Buildwhat’s next.

Urban Apex helps communities, organizations and developers turn complicated real estate opportunities into places that work.

Explore Our Work

Real estate is about more than buildings.

It’s about what buildings make possible.

Homes.Businesses.Connections.Opportunity.Places where people choose to be.

We start with the community, the people and the opportunity — then figure out what the real estate needs to become.

To get there, we bring three things into focus at the same time:

  • The numbers. Budgets built from zero and tested against the market, so the deal works in practice, not only on paper.
  • The real-world connections. The partners, capital, neighbors and public agencies a development depends on, brought in early.
  • The design. Places shaped around the people who will live, work and gather there.

A development has to work on opening day and twenty years later. We plan for both.

How we work

Solve the right problem. Build the right solution. Grow what’s possible.

Solve.

Find the opportunity inside the problem.

  • Project troubleshooting
  • Acquisition + repositioning
  • Housing + redevelopment strategy
  • RFP strategy
  • Portfolio strategy
  • Disaster recovery + resiliency
  • Special initiatives

Build.

Turn ideas into places and plans into action.

  • Opportunity + site assessment
  • Feasibility + financial modeling
  • Development strategy
  • Development management
  • Capital strategy
  • Public/private development
  • Owner’s representation

Grow.

Leave communities, organizations and people stronger.

  • Development team strategy
  • Leadership + mentorship
  • Organizational capacity
  • Development pipelines
  • Go/no-go frameworks
  • Decision-making + accountability
  • Education + facilitation

What we do

Sometimes the best assignments don’t have a name yet.

  • A property nobody quite knows what to do with.
  • A project that isn’t working.
  • A community facing a housing challenge.
  • An organization considering development for the first time.
  • A team stretched beyond its capacity.
  • An opportunity that doesn’t fit neatly into anyone’s job description.
Christopher Laurent with a partner at a project opening in DetroitChristopher Laurent with real estate development students after classChristopher Laurent with a fellow member at the Rotary Club of MadisonChristopher Laurent with colleagues at a volunteer workday outside an apartment communityChristopher Laurent with community partners in Camden, New Jersey

Those are the conversations we like.

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Featured work

View All Developments
Facade of Middleton Station: brick and lap-siding bays with tall windows and private balconies

Middleton Station

Middleton, Wisconsin
Market-rate multifamily / Urban infill / Connected downtown development
Aerial view of downtown Sturgeon Bay with a four-story mixed-use building near the waterfront

The Bay Lofts

Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin
Mixed-use / Waterfront / Downtown development
The Hive on Russell, a four-story charcoal building in Detroit, with the downtown skyline and Ford Field beyond

The Hive on Russell

Detroit, Michigan
Mixed-use / Neighborhood development / Placemaking
30+Years of real estate development experience
$1.2B+Development + financing experience
2010Urban Apex established

What are you trying to build?

Bring us the complicated stuff.

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