Louis Dubin

[8] He is a founding partner of Redbrick LMD, an opportunistic real estate investment and developments company headquartered in Washington, D.C.[9][1] His former New York based firm Athena often sold condominiums to middle and upper-middle class buyers.

[2] During his college years, he met future wife, Tiffany Rounick, whose stepfather was A. Alfred Taubman, the Detroit-based shopping mall pioneer.

[2][13] The pair were married in 1989 at the "socially prestigious"[14] Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan and fashion reporters from the New York Times described that guests wore "crisply tailored suit jackets worn over long, narrow skirts.

"[16] Dubin hired Rosen Consulting to do macroeconomic forecasts of job development and household formation in key cities in the United States.

[6] Dubin hired analysts typically with Master's degrees in Real Estate as well as MBAs who he felt were "well rounded individuals" and "tactile with numbers" yet had a feel for "concepts and form.

"[6] Employees were encouraged to listen attentively to the market, and included former lawyers, bankers, textile design curators, tank platoon commanders, architects, and construction managers.

[13] When it found properties to buy, it would analyze a prospective purchase in depth, including doing due diligence,[13] which is a comprehensive real estate checklist process of examining systematically such details as environmental issues, geological and marketing factors.

[6] In 2002, the firm encountered a setback when 78-year-old Taubman was convicted of price-fixing in connection with his ownership of the Manhattan-based auction house Sotheby's and he spent ten months in jail.

[2] From 2002 to 2005, Athena focused on condominium conversion projects, but after 2005, shifted to real estate development which included building new high-rise structures from the ground up.

[21] Athena did projects in the suburbs of Washington, Florida,[21] Providence, North Carolina, Utah, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

[23] The firm made campaign contributions to both Democrats and Republicans, including John McCain, Mitt Romney, Robert Menendez, and Hillary Clinton.

[28] In the late 1990s, a prominent headquarters building for the 11-story Union of American Hebrew Congregations at 838 Fifth Avenue at 65th street, originally built in 1950,[29] was bought by A. Alfred Taubman, and who worked with Athena to convert the units to luxury condominiums.

[14] Athena worked with architects Beyer Blinder Belle and created storage rooms, wine cellars, and servants' quarters for each unit.

[32] Interiors were demolished and reconfigured with nine-foot-high ceilings, and included corner living rooms of up to 47 by 20 feet (6.1 m) and libraries with wood-burning fireplaces.

[32] In the early 2000s, Athena acquired and converted the Liberty Warehouse property in the Lincoln Center district of Manhattan at 43 West 64th street.

"[35] Athena took the old Liberty Warehouse and modernized it; since it operated an entire block, the new building featured a drive-through area for valet parking.

"[8] The rebirth of Harlem along Central Park north had attracted celebrities such as Marcia Gay Harden, Maya Angelou, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

[42] According to one report, Athena and the magazine commandeered, for the party, "a pair of penthouses, a 4,000-square-foot triplex with an additional 1,700 square feet of terraces," with a projection screen to "mimic an airplane's interiors, courtesy of Lufthansa.

[19] Dubin brought in architects from the Hillier Group as well as Schuman, Lichtenstein, Claman and Efron who designed the brick and glass facade.

[19] The project, dubbed "A" Jersey City, was a 33-story tower with 250 apartments, 10,500 square feet (980 m2) of ground-floor retail space, a 238-space parking garage from the second through sixth floors.

[19][30] To make the condominiums attractive to upscale buyers, amenities included around-the-clock concierge and personal assistant services, a private fitness center, a westward-facing terrace, and each unit had 9'4" ceilings.

Dubin returned to his alma mater, Washington College of Law at American University, to speak on real estate topics on several occasions.

[2][3] Dubin believes there is a need for affordable housing and thinks "low density zoning" would be beneficial in some communities; in others, "abysmal, high profile failures" have tainted the image of high-density projects.

In September 2006, there were plans to develop another property in Jersey City by working with the Netherlands-based Office for Metropolitan Architecture and architect Rem Koolhaas.

[27] A mixed-use, $300 million joint venture project featuring retailers, restaurants, and housing units in northern Las Vegas with Vestar Development dubbed "Heart of North Las Vegas" was planned in 2007, which was supposed to have "outdoor fireplaces, pop-jet fountains, a video wall, a performance stage, shaded pedestrian walkways and tailored landscaping.

One real estate journal reported that "Athena Group ... created a lot of hype over a 160-acre, mixed-use development ... by asking the community to come up with a name for it and awarding a four-year college scholarship to the winner.

"[48] In 2008, Dubin and Athena parted ways, and he formed another real estate firm called LMD Worldwide LLC which was patterned after his initials.

Dubin was described in New York Magazine in 1998 as one of the city's social leaders who were "all born after the baby boom and free of its disdain for old conventions", and was a member of the "uptown A-listers" including Prince Alexander von Fürstenberg, Pia Getty, The Crown Princess of Greece, and fashion designer Carolina Herrera Jr.