COMPANY HISTORY
In December 2015, Workable City acquired its first asset—a four-family building near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Seven years later, co-founders Sara Willard and Adam Heller have developed a growing real estate portfolio.
With decades of commercial real estate experience to guide them, the Workable team relies on speed and institutional discipline to acquire and reposition assets for long-term, multi-generational hold periods. They focus on overlooked and difficult projects with investments that require a solid foundation of trust and transparency amongst all stakeholders.
OUR TEAM
Matthew Klein
Matthew Klein joined Workable City as a partner and principal in 2019 to head up the firm’s new construction and for sale property division. In his 21-year development career, Matthew has raised over $400M in equity and been directly involved in the development of approximately 1M sf of residential and mixed-use properties in the New York metropolitan area.
Matthew has a deep knowledge of NYC’s difficult entitlement processes and successfully led the development team through a private ULURP for a super tall tower in lower Manhattan. In addition, Matthew has successfully developed properties in multiple landmarked neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
ADAM HELLER
Adam Heller co-founded Workable City in 2016, and has grown the company into a full-scale development company with over $100M in assets. At Workable City, Adam has amassed extensive experience navigating projects with entitlement and legal hurdles.
Adam has over 15 years of experience in finance and real estate development. He began his career in real estate when he founded Heller Property Group and repositioned legacy manufacturing assets in Central Valley California into distribution properties in 2013.
Adam graduated from Columbia Business school in 2014 and joined Abingdon Square Partners, a privately held real estate company in Brooklyn. There he focused on acquiring mixed-use properties in emerging neighborhoods such as Prospect Lefferts and East Flatbush.
Erica Libritz
Erica joined Workable City in May of 2020. She brings over 16 years of New York City architectural and construction experience in-house, leading the daily project operations of Workable’s numerous developments and holdings. With extensive knowledge of the NYC Zoning Resolution and related Building Codes, she helps find opportunities with creative solutions to all aspects of building design, zoning, and feasibility studies.
Prior to joining Workable, Erica was an Associate Principal at CetraRuddy Architecture. She was responsible for some of the firms largest and most complex entitlement and design projects ranging from the mixed-use supertall tower at 45 Broad Street and the multifamily residential tower at Rose Hill (30 East 29th Street) in Manhattan, along with the three building, 1M square foot mixed-use waterfront tower complex at 77 Commercial Street in Brooklyn.
Erica is a Registered Architect licensed in the State of New York, and is the recipient of the American Institute of Architects 2019 Young Architect’s Award. She was also named to Building Design and Construction’s 40 Under 40 class of 2019.
Sara Willard
After more than 20 years of commercial real estate investment experience, Sara Willard founded Workable City with Adam in 2016.
Sara’s real estate career began at Prudential Capital. She managed the company’s workouts and conduit lending before transitioning into office development for a national real estate investment trust (REIT). After earning her MBA from UC Berkeley, Sara managed national acquisitions for two opportunity funds, Greenfield Partners and MacFarlane Partners, primarily in residential and mixed-use investments. She later transitioned to NYC acquisitions and project management for ground-up and rehab residential development.
Before launching Workable City, Sara’s final office role was serving as Senior Project Manager at The Hudson Companies, where she oversaw the development of four residential projects. Sara has an undergraduate degree from University of Virginia in City Planning. She is a member of WX (Women Executives in Real Estate) and served two terms as an appointed Owner-member of the NYC Rent Guidelines Board.