Blake Hastings Starts Nov. 1 as President of Oppidan Investment Co.
After five years at the helm, Blake Hastings, the managing director of CBRE’s Minneapolis-St. Paul brokerage, is leaving to become president of Excelsior, Minnesota-based development and construction management firm Oppidan Investment Co.
As of Nov. 1, Hastings, a cancer survivor, will work in tandem with Oppidan’s founder and CEO, Joe Ryan, who established the company in 1991. Up to this point, Ryan served as president of the company.
Though Hastings is originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma, his ties to the Twin Cities company run deep. Ryan is his wife’s uncle, and Hastings also counts him as a close personal friend. Oppidan is also a longtime client of CBRE.
“The chance to learn about development from [Ryan] was super exciting to me,” Hastings said in an interview on Tuesday. “This also allows me to stay local and get back on the deal side.” At CBRE, Hastings was primarily responsible for leading a brokerage with about 225 employees.
In his new role, Hastings will oversee operations and shape the strategic direction of Oppidan, which already works in 35 U.S. states and Canada and intends to expand further over the next 10 years.
Oppidan is the 10th-largest real estate development company based out of Minneapolis-St. Paul, according to the most recent list produced by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal.
It is best known for its developments in retail, senior housing and the multifamily sectors, particularly in North Dakota’s Bakken rock formation. Around 2011, the company began investing heavily in projects in the oil producing region, which was then experiencing an unparalleled boom.
It currently has two high-profile projects underway in Minneapolis-St. Paul: a 340,000-square-foot senior housing facility on the east side of Minneapolis called The Pillars of Prospect Park and Lowa46, a mixed-use development in southeast Minneapolis that will include 148 apartments and a small-format Cub Foods grocery store.
In addition to developing its own properties, Oppidan does project management for a long list of clients, supervising the construction of new locations for retailers like Abra Auto Body and Duluth Trading Co.
Hastings will stay on at CBRE right up until he starts at Oppidan.
“CBRE has been so good to me. I want to make sure that the transition there is as smooth as it possibly can be,” Hastings said.
While CBRE searches for someone to fill Hastings’ shoes, his role at CBRE will temporarily be taken over by the brokerage’s Midwest division president, John Latessa, and Jeff Jiovanazzo, sales director at the Minneapolis office, according to a statement from CBRE.
Hastings lives in Wayzata, Minnesota. He has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Villanova University. He began his career in commercial real estate in Phoenix, where he worked as a broker at Grubb & Ellis, which was integrated into Cassidy Turley.
By the time he left Cassidy Turley for CBRE in 2012 he’d been promoted to senior vice president.
He is the father of four children, a 2-year-old girl and three boys ages 8, 10 and 11.
