Building Density Where Cities Need It Most.
FORGE acquires underutilized urban land and delivers high-quality rental housing in Philadelphia’s emerging neighborhoods.
Urban Housing Deficits Are a Structural Opportunity
Philadelphia is significantly undersupplied with quality rental units. FORGE targets vacant, blighted, and underutilized sites, acquiring through direct negotiation, tax sale, and community partnership, rarely through competitive bid, preserving a land basis advantage that creates embedded return from day one.
FORGE is capitalized entirely by the Kaufman family office and its principals. There’s no outside LP capital to raise, no promote waterfall to manage, and no capital-raising calendar constraining how or when we execute a deal.
- Sector
- Urban Infill & Multifamily
- Markets
- Philadelphia, PA
- lawrence@forgellc.net
The Structural Case
Structural Undersupply
Both markets add fewer housing units annually than demand requires, a gap FORGE is built to fill.
Land Basis Advantage
Vacant and blighted parcels trade at significant discounts to replacement cost, creating embedded margin.
Entitlement Edge
Deep relationships with local planning authorities let us move faster through entitlements than generalist developers.
Neighborhood Momentum
We target blocks adjacent to recent institutional investment, where value creation is just beginning to compound.
A city with decades of demand and decades of disinvestment.
Philadelphia’s core neighborhoods have chronically underproduced housing. FORGE has an established presence with active projects underway and a proprietary pipeline of off-market sites in West Philadelphia, North Philadelphia, and Germantown.
Westminster Avenue, West Philadelphia
A vacant, underutilized commercial structure at the corner of Westminster Ave and North 51st Street. FORGE will demolish and deliver 74 market-rate rental units across five stories, with ground-floor commercial space and structured parking. The project is funded directly through the Kaufman family office.
Leads deal sourcing and execution across Philadelphia.
Decades of real estate development and investment experience across the Mid-Atlantic region.
Oversees entitlement, design management, and general contractor relationships.
Disciplined Underwriting. Community-First Development.
Acquisition
We target sites where the land basis, not the business plan, creates the return, through direct negotiation, tax sale, and community partnership.
Entitlement & Design
We engage neighborhood stakeholders early. Community approval accelerates timelines and reduces execution risk.
Construction
We use guaranteed maximum price (GMP) contracts and maintain owner contingency reserves above industry norms.
Principal Alignment
Every deal is funded with the same family office capital our principals are personally accountable for, no promote structure, no outside capital to align with.
Notes on Urban Redevelopment
Daniel Kaufman writes about real estate investment, submarket selection, and development strategy. Follow along on Substack and Medium.
Let’s Talk About the Westminster Ave Opportunity.
FORGE funds its projects directly through the Kaufman family office. We’re always glad to hear about off-market sites, and to talk with mission-aligned operators about a joint venture on the right deal.