Hudson Pacific Properties, Inc . (NYSE: HPP) said April 14 it has launched EquiBlue, a new impact investing platform that seeks to leverage commercial real estate to provide direct benefits for under-resourced communities and economic opportunity and upward mobility for women and people of color.
EquiBlue‘s Black- and women-led team will manage a series of private funds on behalf of institutional investors, starting with an initial capital investment target of $300 million. EquiBlue will focus on transforming obsolete properties into vibrant, amenitized office and mixed-use space with direct benefits for under-resourced communities, while generating strong financial returns.
Victor Coleman, Hudson Pacific’s chairman and CEO, described EquiBlue as a “natural extension” of the company’s Better Blueprint ESG program, “through which we’ve consistently found innovative ways to leverage our expertise to bring positive change to our business and industry, and strengthen the communities in and around our core markets.”
EquiBlue will begin raising capital while concurrently identifying and evaluating potential investment opportunities in what it views as under-resourced markets close to Hudson Pacific’s core markets in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and Vancouver.
CBRE will work with Hudson Pacific as a strategic partner and exclusive provider of certain real estate services. Collectively, Hudson Pacific and CBRE, as sponsor and strategic partner respectively, will commit at least 20% of the total capital commitment for EquiBlue’s initial fund.