Breaking Ceilings|Breaking Ground

What do a recurring childhood dream and a bulldozer have to do with building community wealth? Everything, if you're Dr. Gina Merritt.In this episode of Breaking Ceilings Breaking Ground, Molly McCabe and Jill Ferrari sit down with Dr. Gina Merritt, MBA: Founder and Principal of Northern Real Estate Urban Ventures (NREUV) in Washington, D.C. Gina grew up in affordable housing in the Bronx, lost her mother at thirteen, and helped raise three younger siblings. At sixteen, a conversation with her father set her on the road to independence.On Wall Street she found a pure meritocracy and loved it. But business school changed the question: she no longer wanted to make rich people richer. She sent a résumé to D.C. thinking she was applying to a general contractor. It turned out to be a development opportunity. Asked what would excite her about the job, her answer was immediate: "If I could build neighborhoods like the one I grew up in. I grew up in affordable housing."Then came the bulldozer. From roughly age seven to fifteen, Gina had a recurring dream, two or three times a week, of a bulldozer chasing her. On the first day of her first development job, she pulled up to a twelve-acre site, saw the bulldozer, and started crying in her car, not from fear, but from recognition. "My God, this is what I was supposed to do." She'd never seen one in real life. She grew up among thirty-story buildings.Her central concept, formalized during her doctorate, is social capital, leveraging trusted relationships to connect people to opportunity. And when the job isn't enough, her team becomes the safety net. Sustainability, in her definition, is whether a person's life can hold together long enough to reach the opportunity in front of them.Also in this episode:Mary's House for Older Adults: the nation's first communal affordable housing for LGBTQ+ older adults.The 2020 inflection: after twenty years of hearing no, Goldman Sachs and Capital Impact Partners funded her first ownership projects. "What these investors and lenders were underwriting was not my balance sheet. It was my experience."The $1 billion goal: $1B in assets under management by 2034.Ground Up, launching December 1, a learning community teaching development at minimal cost. "If I could do it, a little girl from the Bronx, anybody could do it."Know your numbers: "I don't think you're a true owner-developer unless you know how to run your own financial model."Connect with Dr. Gina MerrittWebsite: drginamerritt.netGround Up wait list: community.drginamerritt.netVolunteer with Project Community Capital: projectcommunitycapital.netNREUV: nreuv.comLearn more about Breaking Ceilings Breaking Ground: https://breakingceilingsbreakingground.com/Subscribe, follow, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who's building a safety net of their own.

What if the best preparation for a career in development was never having a five-year plan at all?In this episode of Breaking Ceilings Breaking Ground, Molly McCabe and Jill Ferrari sit down with Ashley Terry, President of Development at Pivot Project in Oklahoma City. Ashley's path into real estate was anything but traditional: she started out as a hairdresser before a single book changed the direction of her life.Ashley leads development strategy and execution across Pivot's portfolio, with a focus on urban infill, mixed-use, and adaptive reuse in downtown Oklahoma City. Her work spans hospitality, historic rehabilitation, retail, housing, and public-private infrastructure. But she's less interested in isolated projects than in what she calls "building pieces of a city": the ten interdependent parts that all have to work together to make a place function.It's a generalist's superpower, and Ashley leans all the way into it. In the course of a single day she might move from historic tax credits to re-tenancy to horizontal infrastructure, connecting dots that usually live in separate conversations.Before Pivot, Ashley spent more than a decade at Wheeler District, a 150-acre urban infill project in Oklahoma City. She joined in a flexible "do whatever needed to be done" role and grew into Vice President of Development, with work spanning placemaking, entitlements, infrastructure, vertical development, operations, and strategy. Watching a project evolve from an empty field into a neighborhood where people live, work, and gather gave her a rare feedback loop: and taught her that small decisions have a long tail.She also shares one of the best stories in the episode: a small playground placed between a restaurant and a brewery that turned into a family epicenter, with friends driving 30 minutes from the suburbs just to use the patio. The idea came from a 2017 team trip to Copenhagen, where the team biked the city and observed how families were woven into everyday public life.Ashley defines sustainability in a way that will stick with you: does a project actually work over time? Can a building adapt to a second- or fourth-generation user? Can it remain financially and operationally sound long after the original development team is gone?She also tells the story of Western Gateway Elementary School: handed an idea in 2017 with no education background and told to make it happen. She broke ground in March 2020, navigated charter authorization and curriculum-driven design decisions (restrooms in every classroom, for starters), and calls it her favorite project because she could see children learning in the finished building.Throughout the conversation, Ashley keeps returning to a people-first lens shaped by Jan Gehl's Life Between Buildings and Jane Jacobs. Developers create the framework for community, she says: but they can't manufacture it. The best work leaves room for people to make a place their own.Connect with AshleyEmail: [email protected]: pivotproject.comLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ashleynterryPivot Project is actively seeking partners: architects, lenders, and investors for its development pipeline. Learn more about Breaking Ceilings Breaking Ground: https://breakingceilingsbreakingground.com/Subscribe, follow, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who's ready to jump in and figure it out.

What does it take to build a retail-first development platform in one of the fastest-growing markets in the country? For Elam Freeman, it starts with knowing who the customer is: because she is one of them.In this episode of Breaking Ceilings Breaking Ground, Molly McCabe and Jill Ferrari speak with Elam Freeman, Nashville native and founder of Ojas Partners, a retail-focused commercial real estate advisory firm serving greater Nashville and surrounding markets. Elam also launched an investment venture in 2025 that sponsors deals in the neighborhoods she knows best.Elam's path into commercial real estate was anything but linear. She studied political science, expected to work in social services, and taught yoga on the side to pay bills during her commission-only early years. When she entered the industry a decade ago, she describes feeling like a fish out of water culturally: but instead of retreating, she ran at the problem. That choice shaped her career philosophy: stand up, buy in, and break ground.At Ojas Partners, Elam and her team of about ten brokers serve as "the advocate for the retail in the room" on mixed-use projects. They come in early to help developers program retail space so it attracts the right tenants, then carry projects through lease-up. The firm has brought brands such as Equinox and Sweetgreen to Nashville while also helping local businesses grow from one location into many.Elam explains why retail strategy is a development function, not just a leasing function: and why securing commercial tenants can help mixed-use projects reach closing with more stable income streams. She also shares her approach to neighborhood merchandising: coordinating retail across a corridor so a district feels cohesive rather than piecemeal, because a rising tide lifts all ships.Now moving from LP investments to GP sponsorship, Elam is candid about her goal of getting more women and more first-time investors into private real estate. She discusses accessibility, walking before you run, and why she operates with an abundance mindset: "When you get the right people in the room, one plus one equals three."She also makes the case for AI as a force multiplier: not a replacement for judgment: and explains her plan to bring in an "AI architect" to connect marketing, accounting, and operations into one cohesive platform.Connect with Elam FreemanLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/elamfreeman : messaging is the best way to reach herElam is actively seeking capital partners for Nashville deals, from institutional groups to friends-and-family opportunities, and welcomes listeners interested in investing alongside a female sponsor.Learn more about Breaking Ceilings Breaking Ground: https://breakingceilingsbreakingground.com/Subscribe, follow, leave a review, and share this episode with someone ready to run at the problem.

Ronita Coleman: Persistence in PracticeWhat does it take to bring a nearly century-old building back to life after more than 20 years of vacancy? For Ronita Coleman, the answer is persistence, alignment, and a commitment to building for future generations.In this episode of Breaking Ceilings Breaking Ground, Molly McCabe and Jill Ferrari speak with Ronita Coleman, co-founder of LJ Golden Realty in Metro Detroit. Ronita shares the story behind Casa del Rey, a historic building in Pontiac, Michigan, being transformed into a 54-unit apartment community for middle-income and working-class residents earning approximately 60%–120% of area median income.With the project nearing its ribbon cutting, Ronita reflects on the challenges of restoring a complex, long-vacant property—and why she and her husband believed Casa del Rey needed a solution they could help provide.Ronita’s path to development began alongside a 24-year career at General Motors. She and her husband started by fixing and flipping foreclosed homes, then shifted to buy-and-hold investments after becoming parents. After acquiring approximately eight to ten single-family homes on Detroit’s east side, they recognized that commercial real estate offered the scale needed to multiply their impact.The transition was not easy. A first commercial deal fell apart at the closing table, but Ronita kept the property and treated the experience as an education rather than a defeat. Her philosophy is clear: every challenge teaches you how to handle the next one.Ronita also discusses the lived experiences that shape her approach to development—including her retired parents, her late grandmother who lived independently until age 86 despite being blind, and a cousin who uses a wheelchair. Accessibility, affordability, walkability, “busability,” and dignity are not abstract concepts in her work. They are essential measures of a quality home and community.Connect with Ronita ColemanLinkedIn: Search for Ronita ColemanFacebook: Search for LJ Golden RealtyInstagram: Search for LJ Golden RealtyLearn more about Breaking Ceilings Breaking Ground:https://breakingceilingsbreakingground.com/Subscribe, follow, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who is building with persistence—and with future generations in mind.

Ellen Buckley believes the next frontier in real estate isn't a building technology. It's understanding people.Ellen is founder and CEO of Prospera Real Estate Collective, where she's led over $6 billion in development across multifamily, workforce housing, mixed-use, hospitality, and master-planned communities in the Midwest, Northeast, Southeast, and Asia. She started in the industry at fourteen, transferring deeds at her grandfather's law firm. By seventeen, she was the only woman on an all-male framing crew. Today, she's applying neuroscience and human behavior research to how communities get built.In this episode, Ellen talks about:Why she moved a workforce homeownership project forward through a partnership with a local churchCommunity immersion: why she spent three days living in a North Miami neighborhood — and did it again in Coconut Grove — before finalizing a projectSapient urbanism, and what changes when developers study neuroscience and human behavior alongside site plansAn independent study Prospera commissioned on workforce turnover costs in Miami-Dade County: $1.3 billion in a single yearWhy she treats sustainability as three things at once — economic, social, and environmental — not just green building standardsHer advice for women moving into development: don't wait until you're not the only one in the roomConnect with Ellen: LinkedIn (Ellen Buckley) or [email protected] this episode moved you, subscribe to Breaking Ceilings | Breaking Ground, leave a review, and share it with someone building something. Know a woman in real estate development whose story should be told? Reach out through breakingceilingsbreakingground.com.