Peebles Corp.’s first Boston development would include a hotel, apartments, condos and retail space above the Massachusetts Turnpike in Back Bay.

Real estate mogul R. Donahue Peebles is nothing if not pragmatic.

A lifelong Democrat and a top fundraiser for President Barack Obama, Peebles wasted little time arranging a meeting with then-president-elect Donald Trump in December to discuss a favored topic: access to economic opportunity for women and African-Americans in real estate development.

“He indicated to me a firm commitment to making significant improvements and asked me to help him with it. I took him at his word,” recalls Peebles, who predicted Trump’s victory before primary season began.

Using political influence to benefit minorities in real estate has been a longtime goal for the 57-year-old Peebles, who has acknowledged his interest in running for mayor of New York City. A public-private partnership brought him to Boston in 2013 to compete for the rights to build what would be the first air rights project over the Massachusetts Turnpike in nearly four decades. The project will be 100 percent minority-owned, Peebles said, setting the stage for Boston’s largest commercial development with significant African-American ownership since the One Lincoln St. office tower in 2003.

“The decisions in real estate development are made at the ownership level,” Peebles said. “They set the tone. And if diversity and community engagement is important, then it goes into the project.”

A Focus On Competitive Environments

R. Donahue Peebles

Peebles’ high profile as a best-selling business author and political activist has sometimes overshadowed his work as a real estate developer that landed him a spot on Forbes’ list of 10 wealthiest African-Americans in 2009. Over the past decade Peebles Corp. has completed over 3 million square feet of hotels, office buildings, luxury condos and mixed-use developments in eight coastal cities with total development costs of $1.3 billion.

A Washington, D.C. native, Peebles got his start in the industry as a real estate agent and appraiser, rising to power in the District of Columbia as chair of the real estate tax appeals board under Mayor Marion Barry. At the same time, he branched out into the development business in the nation’s capital. A successful bid on redevelopment of Miami’s Royal Palm hotel in the 1990s propelled Peebles’ career to the next level and framed his future approach to the business.

“The Royal Palm deal taught me to focus on environments where other developers are pursuing the same thing,” Peebles told Banker & Tradesman. “It’s got to be competitive.”

The 420-room Miami hotel included management training programs for female and minority employees, and Peebles envisions a similar arrangement at a 156-room hotel that would be part of the Viola Back Bay.

Peebles’ plans for the hotel, condominiums and apartments on the 1.25-acre air rights parcel beat out two local competitors, Trinity Financial and Boston Residential Group, when the Massachusetts Department of Transportation designated  a developer in 2014. Since then, the estimated project cost has risen nearly 29 percent to $425 million because of the busy local construction climate, Peebles said.

Under the terms of a 2014 agreement with MassDOT, Peebles Corp. agreed to pay $30.5 million in rent, which would be applied to the $45.7 million cost of building a new Hynes Convention Center station on the MBTA Green Line and make it handicapped-accessible. The two sides are in negotiations on development and station improvement agreements, and Peebles hopes to begin permitting in early 2018 on the designs by Handel Architects and Utile.

Peebles shrugs off other developers’ failed attempts to build above the Turnpike as bad market timing, rather than a flawed business model. He plans to recruit limited partners from the minority community in Boston.

For design and construction, Peebles has set a goal of 25 percent minority participation. He said he’s had discussions with Winchester-based John Moriarty Assoc., one of the state’s largest construction companies, about a “co-general contractor” arrangement to maximize minority contractors’ opportunities at Viola Back Bay. Moriarty confirmed that he’s discussed a joint venture for parcel 13 with Boston-based Janey Construction Co.

“We think it’s a great opportunity to give a minority contractor an opportunity to grow in a real way in every facet of our business,” Moriarty said.

Minority participation rates have ranged as high as 50 percent at Peebles’ projects in the District of Columbia.

Peebles’ acknowledged interest in challenging New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has spotlighted minority-owned companies’ limited access to lucrative construction contracts, said Kirk Sykes, chairman of the Real Estate Executive Council, a trade association that represents minority executives in commercial real estate.

“He has used the forum to highlight that in the city of New York, which is 65 percent people of color, (minority owned businesses) have less than 2 percent of contracts issued by the city,” Sykes said. “That’s been part of his platform and my sense is he has translated that into his real estate endeavors. It’s a necessary conversation.”

That starts, Peebles said, with government agencies changing prequalification standards that rank companies based upon years of experience.

“There’s got to be a greater recognition of that since minorities have been excluded in the past,” he said. “If we require the city and the state to take on risk, they’re not risking money. They’re just risking time or execution and if they prudently underwrite these and hire a competent firm, then you’ll knock down the barriers.”