Deloitte Cincinnati 100: Carl H. Lindner Award goes to Towne Properties’ Neil Bortz
Neil Bortz, founding partner and chairman of Towne Properties, has played the long game.
The 90-year-old real estate developer first made his mark on Cincinnati in the summer of 1961 when he instigated what many believe to be the “renaissance” of Mount Adams. He and his partners, Marvin Rosenberg and Lambert Agin, purchased five fixer-upper row houses in the then-declining downtown-adjacent community and transformed them into a 16-unit apartment complex called St. Gregory Row. He held tours of the finished units on Friday nights for friends and acquaintances, providing them with boozy spirits and tales of Mount Adams’ architectural history to boost their renting potential.
“At the time, I was in my late 20s and a bachelor, so I’d invite my buddies up for a beer party and whoever ended up drinking too many beers, I would get them to sign a lease,” Bortz said.
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But really, it was the modern amenities and attention to detail that set St. Gregory Row apart for the young professionals Bortz was trying to attract. His team installed skylights, restored wood-burning fireplaces, put in wall-to-wall carpeting and decks, as well as central air conditioning, which wasn’t common at the time. Bortz largely relied on the views of downtown Cincinnati, located just minutes away by car, to convince people to stay.
Sixty-one years later, selling the appeal of Mount Adams is an easier feat thanks to his work revamping over 100 properties in the small hilltop neighborhood. And he’s still not done.
Bortz has his eyes set on reenergizing the neighborhood’s business district and replacing the former Longworth’s bar building − a 19th-century firehouse − with a new mixed-use structure featuring street-level commercial space, three floors of apartments and a rooftop bar.
“Any community, any village, any city is either growing or dying and often healthy cities are doing both,” he said. “It’s normal that some parts get less attractive over time, so they should be replaced by something new to renew the vitality in that area.
“My hunch is that Mount Adams will always be an ongoing project for us,” he said.
Tom Williams, CEO of North American Properties, considers what Bortz did with Mount Adams unique to the region. “Not only can he dream and execute his ideas, but when you look at Mount Adams, you can see just how good his vision actually was.”
The renaissance of Mount Adams may be Towne Properties’ longest-running project, but the property management, development and construction firm is ever-increasing its bandwidth.
Since its founding, the company has expanded to four states, crafted a management portfolio of over 12,000 apartments, built over 160 developments and over 113 million square feet of commercial properties. It now employs nearly 900 people. (The Enquirer and Energage named Towne one of the top regional places to work in 2022.)
Towne is ranked 59th on the 2022 Deloitte Cincinnati 100 list of the region’s largest privately held companies, up from number 65 last year. The development company has been included in the top 100 for all 39 years of publishing the list.
Bortz’s oldest son, Adam, now serves as CEO of Towne Properties while his other sons Brian and Chris run Towne Building Group and the company’s legal business respectively. Its annual revenue exceeded $200.6 million in 2021. Bortz will be recognized for his contributions to the growth and development of Cincinnati as the winner of the 2022 Carl H. Lindner Award for Entrepreneurship and Civic Spirit. The award is named for the late chairman of American Financial Group, a holdings company whose subsidiary, Hunter Savings, funded Bortz with his first major loan in real estate in 1961.
“Neil is the kind of civic booster that Cincinnati needs to celebrate,” said Rick Greiwe, principal of Greiwe Development Group and Bortz’ longtime family friend. “He’s always had the bigger picture in mind and tried to best leverage our local geography and assets to let the nation and world know about our city.” Bortz was honored in 2006 by the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber as a Great Living Cincinnatian.
Born on October 21, 1932, Bortz spent his formative years in Avondale and graduated from Walnut Hills High School, where he now serves as the chairman of the alumni foundation. He studied history at Harvard College, followed by six years in the U.S. Navy as an aviation officer, during which time he attended Harvard Graduate School of Business.From here, Bortz’ foray into real estate is well told; he’s been speaking about his life and legacy for the past several decades and attributes his love for development to a professor he’s called “spellbinding” on more than one public speaking occasion. Bortz met architecture critic and historian Lewis Mumford at the Harvard MIT Joint Center for Urban Studies where he learned to appreciate what “good design can do to enhance people's lives.”
After graduating, Bortz completed a stint at the Kanter Corp. and then Procter & Gamble where he worked in the advertising department and garnered the marketing skills he considers integral to his success today.
“I’ve always told our team here at Towne Properties that we are primarily not a construction team, or a development team or a management team,” he said. “We’re a marketing team. We start with a vision as to what a particular location could use, then we design for that location and that market.”
This philosophy is particularly important to the company’s management work, Bortz told The Enquirer. Towne Properties acquired Regency Place Apartments in Raleigh, North Carolina in 2017 with plans to suss out the market and later develop its own projects in the region.
“We try to be patient and prudent,” Bortz said. “We’re not going to buy something we don’t believe in, flip it and sell it, or just jack up rents. Instead, we like to own, invest and improve our properties over the years. We want to be in it for the long haul."
Pat Sheppard, owner of Mount Adams Bar & Grill, has seen Bortz' fervent promotion of her neighborhood play out over the last 50 years of knowing him. He eats at the local mainstay most days of the week. No matter how busy he gets, she said, his temperament has never changed. "He manages to do it all with such ease," she explained, "though I'm not saying it actually is easy. He just seems to really love what he does."
Neil Bortz' bio
Who: Neil Bortz, founding partner and chairman of Towne Properties
Hometown: Avondale
Education: Walnut Hills High School
Family: Sons Adam, Brian and Chris; daughters-in-law Holly, Laura and Susie; and nine grandchildren
Business: Towne Properties is a construction, development and management company based out of Mount Adams. Founded in 1961 by Neil Bortz, Marvin Rosenberg and Lambert Agin. Adam Bortz is the current CEO.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Deloitte Cincinnati 100: Towne Properties' Neil Bortz wins top honor
