Shawn McLearen

As a community and culture real estate developer, Shawn McLearen has administered over $100 million in public and private funds necessary to advance mixed-use, multi-policy, community development real estate projects. Partners, financing structures and regulatory requirements include private foundations, tax credit equity, state bonds, local / state / federal program funds, and community finance banking products.

A former Vice President of Real Estate Development for Artspace Projects – the nation’s largest non-profit developer for the arts – he has since co-founded Placeful, a non-profit community real estate development company with a mission to foster investment in community space through socially responsible partnerships in finance, agriculture, education and the arts (placeful.org); and New York Hops & Grains (nyhopsandgrains.com) with a mission to bring craft beverage farming back to the Empire State. Previously, he co-founded Mixed Palate as a bi-lingual website that promotes sustainable food culture (mixedpalate.com); and Farm to Campfire as a platform to celebrate the produce and producers of the Hudson Valley (farmtocampfire.com). He has served as an Executive Committee member of the North East Foodshed Finance Alliance; as well as Food+Enterprise (foodandenterprise.com); and is a Development Committee member of Slow Food NYC, supporting it’s mission to build a food system that is good, clean and fair for all (slowfoodnyc.org).

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