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2022 Annual Next Generation Awards
Atlanta & Southeast
Fenway Merlino
Point person for Midtown Union in Midtown, Atlanta
A former consultant who uses those skills in his CRE career
Fenway Merlino was promoted to Granite Properties’ Leasing & Asset Manager in 2022, four years after arriving at the company’s Atlanta office.
As part of his duties, Merlino is point person for Midtown Union in Midtown Atlanta, Granite’s first mixed-use development outside of the Texas market. Granite is developing the large, transformative mixed-use project in conjunction with MetLife Investment Management. In working with the project, Merlino has spearheaded a wide range of project-level initiatives, including the parking operation, project-wide marketing efforts, operating and discretionary budgets and leasing-related lender communications.
In 2020, Merlino was selected to participate in Granite’s LEAD class, a one-year program for the company’s up-and-coming professionals. He is also a member of NAIOP Georgia Future Leaders. He fills many “unofficial” roles at Granite, always volunteering to help his teammates with projects, and taking on roles with organizational committees.
Merlino was a consultant before turning to commercial real estate, and draws on his background to help Granite enhance experiences and standardize procedures through new tools and technologies. For example, he led a small team in the implementation of VTS, which helped efficiently store documents and streamline processes, while reducing human error. VTS also eliminated the siloed nature of Excel spreadsheets, which had been used, stored and tracked in each local market previously, but not shared across the organization.
These are just a few reasons we chose Merlino as one of the Southeast’s 2022 Next Generation Award winners. Connect Media’s sixth annual Next Generation Awards recognize young leaders in the commercial real estate industry who are likely to be influential for years to come.
