Arana Hankin
Arana Hankin has over 15 years of experience working in economic development, arts policy, planning and real estate development. She is passionate about historic buildings, adaptive reuse, and is committed to utilizing innovative placemaking models to transform communities.
Having worked for New York State for close to 10 years overseeing a number of large scale public private planning and development projects in New York City, Arana has strong relationships with senior leadership in the State and the City, as well as with local elected officials. She is experienced with pursuing government approvals for development projects, having led rezoning processes, complex environmental review analyses, and public reviews. She has led the process for securing of Historic Tax Credits, and Brownfield Tax Credits, including leading the negotiations of public financing agreements. Twice she successfully applied and was awarded two $1 million grants from New York State’s Consolidated Funding Program for private projects.
Most recently Arana worked with Sugar Hill Capital Partners as their Vice President of Development, and now as a Consultant, overseeing a number of small ground-up market-rate condo projects in Harlem and Brooklyn. She manages the due diligence phase, financial modeling, market analysis, and design phase of each project.
As Senior Real Estate Development Manager of the women-owned firm, Lela Goren Group, she was charged with overseeing the renovation of the historic Glenwood Power Plant in Yonkers, New York into a creative mixed-use commercial, event, performance, and exhibition space, and the nearby historic Alder Manor into a formal event space and small hotel.
She has worked as a real estate consultant with HR&A Advisors on a number of large-scale public and private real estate development projects in the planning, financing, and construction stages and led special projects for one of the largest start-ups in the world – the co-working company, WeWork.
From 2010-2013 Arana served as the Director of the Atlantic Yards Project, President of the Queens West Development Corporation, and Project Manager for the Columbia University Manhattanville campus for the New York State Empire State Development Corporation. She oversaw various housing, commercial, public space and infrastructure capital projects and ensured the implementation of a variety of community benefits by private developers.
As the Assistant Secretary for Cultural and Economic Development in the New York State Governor’s Office from 2007-2010 Arana led negotiations which cleared the way for the building of the FDR Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island and supported many other creative civic projects.
Arana earned her undergraduate degree from Howard University and her master’s degree from Stanford University. She was a Loeb Fellow from 2013-2014 at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design where she studied placemaking and equitable real estate development models. Arana lives in Harlem with her husband and daughter.