CJ Follini (born New York in 1967) is an American digital media entrepreneur, film producer and real estate investor. A native New Yorker who built his group of companies by investing in alternative real estate types such as: digital film studios; healthcare real estate; student housing; and artist residence clubs as well as providing venture capital for early stage digital content creators..
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Follini grew up in Westchester County and New York City where he attended the prestigious Jesuit high school - Fordham Preparatory School.
Follini received a General Course Degree in Econometrics from the prestigious London School of Economics in the United Kingdom. While in London he played rugby for LSE.
From the age of 12, he worked at entry level construction jobs learning the building trade from his father, Charles Follini Sr., a highly decorated former fireman with the FDNY and the CEO the building conglomerate responsible for Idlewild Airport - the Edenwald Group . While Follini’s early accomplishments came as a Senior Executive of Shooting Gallery and as Founder and CEO of Gun For Hire Production Centers, the largest independent film studio and digital media centers in the United States, respectively, Follini was always active developing and investing in alternative real estate such as: industrial; waterfront land development; brownfields re-development; film studios; and most recently, medical office and senior housing. The following are a few career real estate milestones:
1994 Developed a 400-acre (1.6 km2) site with the Rockefeller Group for the expansion of the International Trade Center in Mount Olive, New Jersey.
1995–2001 Conceived, designed and renovated 400,000+ square feet of digital media studios in New York, Miami, Vancouver, Toronto and Los Angeles. Known as the Gun For Hire Production Centers, his New York site won the Crain’s Small Business Award in 1998.[1]
2001 Developed a re-claimed 12-acre (49,000 m2) brownfield located on the waterfront in Queens, New York. Purchased for $9,000,000 out of bankruptcy, Follini sold the property three years later to the Bayrock Group, Donald Trump's partner in Trump SoHo for $27,500,000.
2002 Formed Noyack Medical Partners, LLC to develop and acquire health care real estate ( i.e. medical office buildings). Since 2003, Follini has accumulated a $100MM+ portfolio.
2005 Formed North Street Community to develop 23-acre (93,000 m2) former St. Agnes Hospital Campus in White Plains, New York purchased at a foreclosure auction for $22,000,000. Recently announced the largest active adult housing development in North America.[2]
The 730,000-square-foot (68,000 m2), $250MM planned campus also includes assisted living and medical office buildings.[2]
2008 Purchased the commercial half of the tallest building in Brooklyn, the famed landmark - One Hanson Place[3]
2009 Began publishing BLACKSWAN webzine.
BLACKSWAN is a successful webzine focused exclusively on Alternative Real Estate. The strategies discussed are founded upon meeting the modern infrastructure needs of our society’s demographic and technological changes. They create new definitions by expanding or leaving altogether the customary real estate categories. BLACKSWAN describes alternative real estate strategies across the risk spectrum such as: healthcare real estate (medical office buildings, acute care centers); senior housing ; sustainable building investment; student housing ; affinity club hospitality ( i.e. gay & lesbian); fractional real estate development; private airport ownership/management; etc.
In 2000, Follini produced the short film BULLET IN THE BRAIN,[4] winner of ten festival awards including the first Million Dollar Hypnotic/Universal Short Film Award. He also produced Someday, a music video for Irish pop band "Tellulah Crash," and a public service announcement for the R.E.A.C.H. Foundation, an organization that helps children with life-threatening diseases and children in low-income school districts.
Follini is also the Executive Producer for the documentary ""Burning the Future: Coal in America""[5] story of mountaintop removal mining and its disastrous effects on the environment.[6]
Recently, the U.S. EPA objected to three more federal permits for mountaintop-removal coal mining citing its disastrous effects on the environment and local water quality as alerted in "Burning the Future: Coal in America"[7]
Additional production credits for CJ Follini include: 2000 "You Can Count On Me" with Laura Linney
2000 "Once in the Life" with Laurence Fishburne
1999 "Judy Berlin" with Edie Falco
1998 "Croupier" with Clive Owen
CJ Follini is Chairman of The Board of Directors of the renowned HERE Arts Center in SoHo, NYC.
Winner of The International Documentary Association's 2008 Pare Lorentz[8] award for Best Documentary [3]
The International Documentary Association has chosen Burning the Future: Coal in America for the , honoring the best documentary film of year that deals with socially relevant issues. The award will be given in Hollywood on December 5th, and will be followed by a screening of the film on December 6th in Los Angeles.
Winner of 1998 Crains Small Business Award for Gun For Hire Digital Media Centers
Winner of 2001 Universal Studios/Hypnotic Film Award for "Bullet In The Brain"