Colleen Carey

Biography: Ms. Carey is the president and founder of The Cornerstone Group, a real estate company whose mission is to create great places for people to live, work and play. The Cornerstone Group focuses on transformative redevelopment projects; they have special expertise in mixed use developments and affordable housing and a strong emphasis on sustainable design, providing consulting services to clients as well as working on development projects of their own. Ms. Carey brings nearly 30 years of experience in the field of real estate development and finance. She is particularly interested in taking a holistic approach to redevelopment, looking beyond just bricks and mortar to a full range of tools to create strong healthy communities. The Cornerstone Group is exploring the ways that they can build stronger communities and better development projects through the inclusion of 1) art and artists, 2) local food and urban agriculture, 3) active living and bicycling, 4) nature and open space and 5) sustainable design, development and operations. Ms. Carey’s current endeavors include the redevelopment of the Lyndale Garden Center in Richfield, Minnesota into a new town center for the first ring suburb of Richfield. The project will incorporate a mix of retail and restaurant uses as well as affordable and market rate housing with a strong emphasis on place-making. Since the formation of The Cornerstone Group, Ms. Carey has participated as a developer in over $200,000,000 of mixed-use and multifamily housing developments, raising over $30,000,000 in private equity investments while securing both public and private debt in complex financing transactions. She has won numerous awards for historic preservation and other real estate development work and was a recipient of the Woman Change-maker award through the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. Ms. Carey has served as a Trustee for the Urban Land Institute as well as the Past Chair of the Minneso