ABOUT
Arris Partners, LLC takes an entrepreneurial approach with an institutional mindset. Arris Partners is a privately held real estate investment firm focused on generating compelling risk-adjusted returns through the acquisition, development, and management of commercial real estate.
Founded in 2017, Arris targets opportunities that benefit from the emerging trends in e-commerce and the unique demand drivers in local markets where we have deep understanding. We bring an entrepreneurial approach to an investment process focused on small-to-mid sized projects.
OUR TEAM
John Garofalo is a Manager and Co-Founder of Arris Partners, LLC with approximately 20 years of real estate advisory, financing, and investing experience.
Most recently, Mr. Garofalo was a Co-Portfolio Manager with AEW Capital Management, LLC managing the $5.0 billion North American and U.S. Diversified strategies. Prior to AEW, he was the Chief Investment Officer for Merestone Partners; a $120 million real estate securities fund. During his tenure, Merestone outperformed the REIT index by approximately 500bps annually. Mr. Garofalo was also a senior Associate with Wachovia Securities’ Real Estate Corporate Finance group. At Wachovia, Mr. Garofalo was responsible for evaluating strategic and financial alternatives for REITs & REOCs and was involved in the execution of over $18 billion of capital markets transactions. Prior to Wachovia, he was an Associate Director and one of three original members at Fitch Ratings in the REIT group.
Mr. Garofalo received a B.A. from Tufts University, an M.B.A. from The Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia, is a holder of the Chartered Financial Analyst designation, and is a member of the Boston Security Analysts Society.
Tom Sibley is a Manager and Co-Founder of Arris Partners, LLC with over 18 years of real estate brokerage, leasing, and investing experience.
Most recently, Mr. Sibley was a broker with Atlantic Retail Properties where he spent 13 years developing and implementing expansion strategies for many national retailers, such as Starbucks, TJX Companies, Chick-fil-A, Chipotle and several others. In addition to his tenant representation, Mr. Sibley was involved in many ground up developments as well as site redevelopments, from an investment perspective as well as sourcing, permitting and leasing the various projects. In his career, Mr. Sibley was responsible for leasing over three million square feet of space on behalf of retailers, owners and developers. Prior to Atlantic, he was a broker with Browne Realty Advisors. At Browne, Mr. Sibley’s primary focus was the expansion of CVS retail locations inside route I-95/128, with a concentration on urban markets.
Mr. Sibley attended Hobart College, where he was a member of the Hobart Men’s Hockey Team for four years. Tom is a member of ICSC and Realty Resources.
Marc Pristawa
Managing Director
(617) 680-1980
Marc Pristawa is a Director of Arris Partners, LLC with over 18 years of capital markets experience. Mr. Pristawa has been involved in all facets of commercial real estate, including acquisitions, dispositions, portfolio/asset management, financing, and brokerage for institutional and entrepreneurial private real estate firms.
Most recently, Mr. Pristawa was the Managing Director of Portfolio Management at Albany Road Real Estate Partners where he had a range of responsibilities including valuations and benchmarking for Fund II & III, fund management, and investor relations. Prior to Albany Road, he held a senior leadership role at FoxRock Properties where he worked closely with the founding partner in supporting the growth of the company through new acquisitions, in addition to executing the investment strategy for all assets within the existing portfolio. Prior to FoxRock, Mr. Pristawa served 10 years at GID and was deeply involved in the acquisition and asset management of value-add office & industrial real estate investments across multiple markets. Before GID, Mr. Pristawa worked on the sell-side as an investment sales broker in the San Diego market specializing in office & industrial properties for Marcus & Millichap.
Mr. Pristawa received a B.A. degree from the Broad College of Business at Michigan State University. Marc is a member of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and continues to stay active in numerous community and civic engagements in Boston.
STRATEGIC ADVISORS
Jason Litwack
Starlight Equity Partners
Jason is the founder and Managing Partner of Starlight Equity Partners. Founded in 2011, Starlight is a real estate investment company that specializes in opportunistic investments, primarily in multi-family, industrial and office assets. Starlight focuses on acquisitions across a broad range of geographic markets throughout the Midwest and East Coast. Taking an entrepreneurial approach to real estate investments, the company’s core thesis is to find value in assets and areas that are often overlooked by institutional investors. Since its inception, Starlight has been involved in over $650 million of real estate transactions.
Jason is also a partner of Starlight Homes, a portfolio of companies focused on the ownership, acquisition, renovation and management of residential properties, primarily in the single-family home rental space. Starlight Homes has partnered with multiple institutional investors, including First Key Homes (a subsidiary of Cerberus Capital Management) and My Community Homes (an affiliate of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts).
Prior to his career in real estate, Jason spent three years as an associate in the capital markets group of White & Case LLP in New York. He received his JD from Brooklyn Law School magna cum laude, and his BA from Tufts University magna cum laude. Jason sits on the Board of Camp Ramah in Wisconsin and founded Read by the River, a children’s literacy organization, based in Boston, MA.
Jeff Chizmas
Jeff is a seasoned business leader/investor having founded or purchased, operated, and successfully exited multiple platform companies in a variety of industries over three decades including real estate development, pet supply manufacturing, import/export distribution, commercial baking, injection molding, retail automotive and others. Along the way Jeff became an active industrial real estate investor retaining ownership of the real estate from the companies he exited and later adding to his portfolio.
Jeff is an active angel investor and member of Mass Medical Angels, North Shore Innoventures (NSVI), and Greentown Labs. Jeff was the Lead Investor for Crowd Comfort, a mobile software & facilities App for data driven facilities and cleaning operations management in the CRE sector.
Jeff got his start with the IBM Company managing a $250M business unit in the financial services and insurance industry sectors in New England. Jeff is a summa cum laude graduate of Boston University with degrees in finance and marketing and has an MBA from Northeastern University’s Executive Program.
