Peters of Cushman & Wakefield dies at 88

A memorial service was held for Vincent Peters, former Cushman & Wakefield chairman, president and CEO, at St. Patrick's Cathedral on April 7. Peters, known to friends as "Jimmy," passed away March 20. He was 88 years old. Until the time of his death, Peters was a vice chairman of Cushman & Wakefield, based in the firm's Midtown Manhattan office. His passion for real estate motivated and inspired generations of brokerage professionals at Cushman & Wakefield, and helped shape urban skylines and revive central cities from coast to coast. Peters joined Cushman & Wakefield at age 17 in 1940 - the day after his high school graduation - and became a broker in 1949. Later he attended City College of New York. During World War II he left Cushman & Wakefield to join the U.S. Marine Corps. He served four years, including two years fighting in the Pacific, before returning to the New York-based real estate firm. Peters led Cushman & Wakefield from 1976 to 1982. His brothers Leone Peters (1911-1988) and Anthony Peters (1916-2010) held those positions prior. Together, the three Peters brothers were instrumental in the expansion of Cushman & Wakefield from a New York brokerage and services firm into a national powerhouse in major urban centers across the U.S. Under the leadership of Jimmy Peters, the company grew swiftly, adding 30 offices and increasing revenue more than six-fold. Throughout his career, Peters spearheaded the initial lease-up of more than 20 million s/f of office space nationwide. During the 1960s and 1970s, he completed several of the most significant assignments of the era. He was one of the lead brokerage professionals involved in the purchase of land for the Sears Tower in Chicago (now known as The Willis Tower), which paved the way for development of North America's tallest building. He also oversaw the development and leasing for the Detroit Bank and Trust Building. In New York, he held the distinction of having won the Real Estate Board of New York's Most Ingenious Deal of the Year on two occasions, in 1975 and 1985. Among his proudest transactions was the deal for the Detroit Bank and Trust Building in 1961, for which he convinced the bank to more than double the size of its planned headquarters, sell the concept to a developer, occupy a portion of the space and lease the excess space to outside tenants. In a February 1986 article in Manhattan Inc., the deal was described as "perhaps the first in which a piece of property was sold to a developer and the seller became the principal tenant and also the lender of the construction loan and the permanent mortgage." In addition to being an example of an early build-to-suit transaction, it also moved Cushman & Wakefield swiftly into the project consulting business. Outside of real estate Peters was dedicated to a wide variety of charitable endeavors. He was the recipient of the Anti-Defamation League's Norman Tishman Human Relations Award "for his outstanding contributions to industry and to the civic and philanthropic life of the American community." He was a member of Tiro A Segno, president of the Columbus Citizens' Committee Inc., a trustee of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, among many other causes. In 1973 he won the Leadership Award in Business from the Grand Council, Columbia Association in Civil Service, and he received an award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews in 1975. In February, the New York office of Cushman & Wakefield established an award in Peters' name, "The Vincent J. Peters Award of Excellence," which will be presented annually to an individual who best embodies the ideals of high achievement, integrity and service excellence, and who demonstrates an outstanding commitment to Cushman & Wakefield and its clients. He was born in Brooklyn in 1922, the youngest of six brothers and a sister. He is survived by his wife Antoinette (Toni), two children, Judy and Eric, as well as his grandchildren, Aron and Laura. His nephews John and Joseph Peters work in Cushman & Wakefield's New York Midtown office, in Brokerage and Project Management respectively. Peters spent more than 70 years dedicated to commercial real estate, all but 14 with Cushman & Wakefield. In 1982, after becoming chairman, he left to form V.J. Peters Associates, which merged with Huberth & Huberth to become Huberth & Peters. There, he served as president and CEO until 1988, when he and partners established SageGroup Associates. In 1996, he rejoined Cushman & Wakefield as a vice chairman. In 1989, in an article in Newsday, real estate developer Melvyn Kaufman said of Peters, "There's nobody better or nicer or smarter or easier to get along with or more fun or quicker."