2024 Year in Review: Rich O’Connell, RJ O’Connell & Associates

What was your greatest professional accomplishment or most notable project, deal, or transaction in 2024? 
20 Years Strong - We hung out our shingle back on March 17, 2004, so this year RJOC celebrated its 20-year anniversary. We would like to thank our clients, consultant teams, strategic partners and vendors, and employees, past and present for their contribution to our success. We look forward to many more successful years to come. 

What emerging trends will drive investment and development in 2025? 
From our vantage point as land planners and civil/site engineers the housing shortage in the Northeast drove land development the last several years and it will continue into 2025. But as we know, residential development does not stand alone and in fact affects many real estate market sectors. It spurs the demand for neighborhood retail and personal services, like urgent care, hospitality and storage units and often through the entitlement process, infrastructure improvement projects. A few clients asked us to dust off some dormant retail planning projects towards the end of the year, so maybe with a little help from the Feds on the interest rate we’ll see an uptick in brick-and-mortar retail/hospitality next year.