Purpose Future Fellow - Emerging Fund Manager
Paul Parkhill
CEO, Gemini Arts Initiative
Paul Parkhill is nurturing and sustaining the kind of economic activity that has revitalized cities, diversified urban economies, and created pathways into the middle class by creating an evergreen vehicle for different stakeholders interested in selling or purchasing urban creative workspaces.
As a Purpose Future Fellow, Paul Parkhill is working on the Maker Preservation Fund (MPF), which seeks to preserve existing urban creative workspaces through evergreen financing. The fund will provide a viable, low-risk alternative liquidity pathway to mitigate the need for property owners to sell or convert their assets, while providing active developers a potential backstop or exit strategy when they are looking to finance and stabilize what are essentially speculative developments.
Paul Parkhill has worked in the fields of community development and planning since 1994. In addition to running his own consulting firm, he currently serves as the CEO of Gemini Arts Initiative, the developer of the Powerhouse Arts building, a 170,000 square foot arts fabrication center in Brooklyn, NY. Paul served for five years as the founding Executive Director of Spaceworks NYC, a city-initiated nonprofit organization that developed affordable long-term workspaces for visual and performing artists in NYC. Between 1999 and 2012, Paul served as the Director of Planning and Development at the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center, a nonprofit that has redeveloped more than 700,000 square feet of space for industrial, artisanal and arts-related businesses. And between 1994 and 1999, Paul worked as a housing developer for Common Ground Community, a supportive housing provider. Paul also serves on the New Markets Tax Credit Community Advisory Board of the United Fund Advisors/National Community Fund in Portland, Oregon. Paul holds a BA from Brown University and a Master’s Degree in Urban Planning from Columbia University.