Catherine Donaher is a specialist in real estate development and master planning. She provides consulting services for real estate development projects, strategic master planning and all aspects of project development.
For over 30 years she has been the principal of her development and planning firm, CD+a. Some examples of the range of CD+a services include Project Development consultant services: to M.I.T. for the development of the 3.2 M square foot University Park Project in Cambridge and for other academic and investment properties for over 20 years; to Beth Israel Hospital for their Master Plan and Clinical Center Building, to Harvard Medical School for redevelopment of the former English High School in the Longwood Medical Area; Strategic development planning services to Harvard University for its proposed campus in Allston, MA, to Alexandria Real Estate Investment Trust for the 1.7 M square foot Binney Street Project in Cambridge, MA and the 10 St. James Avenue office building and retail project for Millennium Properties; campus master planning and project development for Emmanuel College, Lasell College, Suffolk University, Wheelock College, The Boston Conservatory, among others; development advisory services to commercial owners/developers including TA Associates, the Beal Companies, Beacon Companies. For other clients CD+a has provided site searches and relocation analyses as well as building reuse, redevelopment and consolidation studies.
A skilled negotiator, Ms. Donaher represents her clients in real property acquisitions and dispositions and in negotiations with all relevant stakeholders including financing sources, business partners, special interest and community groups, and public agencies to arrive at workable outcomes to difficult land use, development and regulatory issues and to bring projects to successful completion on schedule and within budget.
Ms. Donaher was an organizer of and served as President of the Trust for City Hall Plaza, a non-profit private/public partnership that mobilized private and public resources to re-create Boston’s City Hall Plaza to make it a civic common ground.
Prior to establishing her firm, Ms. Donaher was the Director of Planning and Development for the Massachusetts Port Authority where she was responsible for real estate development, and for master planning, capital budgeting, environmental compliance, and project development for Logan and Hanscom Airports, the Port of Boston, and redevelopment parcels on the Boston Waterfront.
Ms. Donaher received her Master of City Planning from M.I.T. She served on the Visiting Committee for the School of Architecture and Planning at M.I.T. and as a special consultant to the MA Council on the Arts and Humanities. She has taught at the M.I.T. Center for Real Estate’s Professional Development Program and a graduate course in Planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.