Citizens Receives the Real Estate Finance Leader Award of 2021
BOSTON- Citizens has become a major source of financing for commercial real estate developers and investors. The firm’s Commercial Real Estate Finance team is led by Gary Magnuson, Executive Vice President at Citizens and Head of Commercial Real Estate Finance, who also serves as a member of the bank’s Executive Leadership Group, the company’s senior leadership team. Based in Boston, he manages Citizens’ national Commercial Real Estate business, a nation-wide group with offices in Boston, Providence, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Charlotte, Atlanta, Cleveland, Chicago and Los Angeles.
In a moment in time where real estate uncertainty went hand-in-hand with a nation wracked by the pandemic, Magnuson’s Commercial Real Estate team Citizens had rallied, and brought in roughly $5.5 billion in originations over the course of the year, remaining an active lender across a number of segments and geographies. Targeting the life sciences and biotech sectors, Citizens’ notable transactions included a $575 million construction loan it provided to a partnership between WS Development and PSP for a 625,000 SF, office and laboratory building in Boston’s Seaport District, fully preleased to genomics firm Foundation Medicine, a Roche subsidiary.
Since joining Citizens in 1991, Mr. Magnuson has held several different management roles in Citizens’ Commercial Banking division. He started his career in banking at Bank of New England in Boston, where he held several positions prior to joining Citizens.
Magnuson is currently a member of the Real Estate Roundtable and a director emeritus of the Associated Industries of Massachusetts having served as Chairman and Treasurer. He is a former member and Chairman of the Duxbury Massachusetts School Committee. He also has been a director of Hospice Care of Rhode Island, YMCA of Greater Boston, the Massachusetts Business Development Company and has been a participant in the Boston Partners for Education – “Big Cheese Reads” program. He earned an MBA from Boston University and a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Business Administration from the University of Delaware.
Citizens received the Real Estate Finance Leader Award of 2021 at the Boston Real Estate Times Excellence Awards on October 29 in a virtual ceremony via Zoom. To see a recording of the ceremony, click here to watch.
