key takeaways
- Snyder immigrated to Los Angeles, California and became involved with the social issues facing Latinos in the city.
- After the city suffered civil unrest in 1992, Snyder stepped in to help rebuild Los Angeles, growing his company along the way.
Arturo Snyder, co-founder and CEO of real estate development firm prime ministerLeft Mexico City in 1986 and immigrated to Los Angeles, California, where he worked in a restaurant with the goal of becoming a chef.
Image Credit: Courtesy Primestore. Arturo Snyder.
Within no time, after befriending his coworkers and learning about the challenges they faced in their daily lives, Snyder became involved with the social issues facing Mexican immigrants and Latinos in the city.
This inspired Snyder to volunteer for Gloria Molina, who in 1987 became the first Latina elected to the Los Angeles City Council. “He gave me fire for saying, Look, if you want to see change, you have to do it yourselfSnyder recalls.
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Over the next several years, Snyder continued to advance in his career as a chef, but when civil unrest occurred following the Rodney King incident in 1992, Molina asked Snyder if he would be interested in leveraging his relationships within the community to help rebuild the city.
Snyder was – so he and his co-founder Leandro Tyberg, an Argentine immigrant whose father owned buildings that were damaged during the unrest, partnered on a reconstruction project with the mission of employing and empowering Latino communities.
“There was a lot of misinformation and prejudice about what these communities were looking for, what they wanted to be, and what they could be.”
The firm was asked to build a Head Start school on a piece of burned-out property in South Los Angeles for its first project, which was funded by Los Angeles County.
Although Snyder admitted that at the time he “didn’t know the difference between concrete and rebar”, he and the team led from “gut and heart”, worked from 4 a.m. to 7 p.m. and, despite “thousands of mistakes”, completed the school, which still stands at 68th St. and Western Avenue.
“It made us realize how much of an impact we can have on employment and gathering and the physical nature of real estate,” says Snyder. “We were making a pebble in a pond at the time, with such a small project – not knowing that it was like a rock in the pond. And that was really empowering.”
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However, in those early days of construction, being told “no” at almost every turn proved to be one of the biggest challenges, Snyder says.
“There was a perception that things would be stolen in ‘that community,’ that there was no money there, that people were here temporarily, that it wasn’t safe,” explains Snyder. “That was a huge barrier because there was so much misinformation and prejudice about what these communities were looking for, what they wanted to be, and what they could be.”
But Snyder and Tyberg took the time to do extensive research and check the census, which revealed that other developers were competing for a higher-income demographic that was constantly shrinking. In contrast, the co-founders’ focus was on “the youngest, fastest-growing population in the country”—a wide-open opportunity for anyone willing to work.
“The community is the user of the product we create, but they are also employed and empowered by it.”
In the decades since, Primestar’s portfolio has grown significantly, with a portfolio of over $1 billion and 3 million square feet of projects in California, Nevada, Arizona and Texas. The company also continues to hire locally for development projects and requires tenants to do so through lease agreements, creating around 10,000 jobs.
Humility has always been at the center of Primester’s mission, says Snyder, and to this day, the firm handles its community engagement, marketing, and outreach in-house. “We don’t outsource that practice because we think that’s what gives you the best awareness of the community, and also the best product at the end of the day,” says Snyder.
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There is now a desire for communities that are less dense and more walkable, with increased access to public transportation and essential goods and services. Mixed-use developments that bring together housing, medical offices, entertainment, shopping and more have become an integral part of Primester’s business.
“Ultimately, the community is the user of the product we create, but they are also employed and empowered by it,” says Snyder.
“We created the master plan for that project – created the street grid, reconnected it to the entire community.”
One of Snyder’s proudest accomplishments is the Jordan Downs redevelopment project in South Central Los Angeles.
Image Credit: Courtesy Primestore. Jordan Downs Project.
Nearly two decades ago, the city approached the firm to revitalize Jordan Downs, which opened in May 1944 as temporary housing for war workers during World War II. Snyder says that sixty years later, families in Jordan Downs were housed in one-room housing and the infrastructure for the neighborhood was lacking.
“So we created the master plan for that project – created the street grid, reconnected it to the entire community, added a new power plant, created a park area, community area, retail shopping, a grocery store and a 1,600-unit entitlement for the opportunity to build mixed-income housing,” Snyder recalls.
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On September 25, Jordan Downs celebrated the 10th anniversary of the redevelopment project that brought $664 million in new investments in the Watts neighborhood, which includes 787 new affordable homes, 120,000 square feet of new retail, and four new parks.
These days, Snyder says the company’s biggest challenge is misaligned capital.
“It’s easy to tread water that’s popular and where people are copying something that has shown success,” Snyder explains. “There is still a lot of apprehension, surprisingly, with that demographic that is not ‘mainstream,’ and the relationship between population growth and the scale of opportunity versus the limited amount of capital available for those opportunities.”
Primestar counts on institutional capital partners such as the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS), Prudential and Federal Realty Investment Trust before raising its first discretionary blended investment fund in 2023. Urban Vision Fund I It was led by an equity commitment of up to $100 million through Belle Investment Group and an equity commitment of $25 million from LGT Capital Partners.
Snyder says it is one of the first Latino-owned and operated development funds for real estate with institutional capital, allowing the firm to play a direct role in decision making and increasing access to that capital.
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“You can learn a lot about yourself and your project by engaging directly with people who object to certain things.”
Now, as Snyder considers Primester’s future, he looks forward to continuing the firm’s success with transit-oriented, mixed-use design and expanding its footprint nationally.
Snyder has learned a lot over the past three decades in the real estate development business, and his first piece of advice for entrepreneurs hoping to find meaningful success in the industry is one he had to pick up early on: Don’t be afraid to engage with naysayers,
“You can learn a lot about yourself and your project by engaging directly with people who object to certain things because, in most cases, we’ve found that they uncover things we hadn’t thought about,” says Snyder. “And when you listen and exchange with humility, they also open up to different perspectives.”
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Then, after listening to the community and gathering the information you need, get ready to do extensive research.
“Because if you’re going to come back and propose something different, or maybe it’s not the first idea that came to mind for the detractors, you better be prepared to support it in a very strong way,” Snyder says. “But always coming from one place, We heard you. We understand you. And here we come back to you – with the gist.,
