Evan Slavik, the new chief executive of Newport Beach-based Mark IV Capital, is looking ahead to the next three decades for the commercial real estate investor as it prepares to enter its 50th year of business in 2024.
“We are taking a long-term approach to our real estate,” Slavik told the Business Journal.
That strategy is playing out in Reno, Nev., where the firm is building a sprawling logistics facility that could ultimately run close to 30 million square feet. It recently delivered the first phase: an 815,000-square-foot building fully leased to battery recycling company Redwood Materials.
The second, 1 million-square-foot phase of construction will wrap in October.
“We will be rolling out 1 to 2 million square feet of speculative product per year” on the 4,300-acre site, dubbed Victory Logistics District, which Mark IV purchased in 2019.
Market Expansion
Slavik is the son of Chairman James Slavik and brings the family-owned company—some of whose members have made prior editions of the Business Journal’s OC’s Wealthiest listing—into its third generation.
He joined Mark IV in 2012 after working for construction firm Snyder Langston, and currently replaces Paul Cate as CEO following his retirement.
Cate oversaw the expansion of Mark IV into seven markets across five states: California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, and Texas.
“The success of this next chapter in our company’s history could not have been possible without the operational and financial foundation that Paul Cate built during his 24 years leading the company,” Slavik said.
The company today counts a portfolio of roughly 4 million square feet, primarily office and industrial properties with some medical office and retail properties.
It counts four buildings in Orange County, including its headquarters in Newport Beach at 4450 MacArthur. The 21,311-square-foot building was the first office building to achieve LEED Platinum status in Orange County after it delivered in 2015.
The firm counts 56 employees across seven offices, including about 35 in Orange County.
Development Pipeline
Looking ahead, the company is bullish on industrial projects and mixed-use developments, with a 65-acre commercial project in the works near Austin, Texas that will include offices, apartments, a hotel and entertainment venues upon completion.
The project in Round Rock, called The District, may include up to 3 million square feet of office, 1,600 apartment units, 200,000 square feet of retail and a 150-key hotel.
In addition to the 1 million square feet of industrial underway in Nevada, Mark IV has an additional 2 million in the planning process in Northern California, Colorado and Phoenix.
“We have great land holdings for a solid pipeline of speculative development,” Slavik said.
VC Investing
Slavik, who grew up in Irvine and currently lives in Newport Beach with his family, will also oversee Mark IV Capital’s venture capital division, which typically invests in Series A or B rounds for “technologies that measurably increase productivity for business or government customers and have unique IP,” the company said.
It formed an unofficial alliance last year with Costa Mesa’s CerraCap Ventures LLC to co-invest in innovative companies in need of capital.
Mark IV’s director of private equities is Michael Beaudoin, a former venture capitalist for AT&T in Silicon Valley.
