CHC 2023 Chair, Dinner Committee

Ronald M. Druker, president of The Druker Company, Ltd., has been involved in a variety of development activities.  The company’s specialty has, in fact, been to focus not on one particular segment of real estate, but, rather, to be involved in all facets of the industry.  His firm has developed mixed-use projects such as The Heritage On The Garden, facing Boston’s Public Garden, as well as suburban shopping centers, regional malls, urban and suburban office buildings, residential developments, and hotels.  Recognized for his diversity in project types, Druker’s developments have also received awards from Boston’s Preservation Alliance.  His company currently owns and manages two hotels in Boston.

 

In February 1998, The Druker Company won the Boston Redevelopment Authority/Boston Center for the Arts competition to develop a 250,000sf mixed-use building in Boston’s growing South End, including two theaters, 25,000sf of retail shops, a 400-car garage, and 110 condominiums.  Today, the project, known as Atelier|505, stands successfully completed, and it was awarded the coveted “Oscar” of the development profession, The Urban Land Institute’s Award for Excellence.  The only Boston company to win the award twice (The acclaimed The Heritage on The Garden being the other ULI award winner).  In 1996, the company purchased the 350,000sf mixed-use Longwood Galleria in Boston and received Boston Redevelopment Authority approval for The Colonnade Residences, a twenty-story luxury apartment building, adjacent to The Colonnade Hotel, which opened the spring of 2003.  The company also earned the Urban Land Institute’s Award for Excellence for The Heritage on The Garden, (see above) and was selected by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to develop the prized fifteen-acre Massachusetts Highway Department site in Wellesley on which The Druker Company developed the 270,000sf complex housing the headquarters of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, known as Wellesley Gateway.  Currently, Druker is building 350 Boylston at the corner of Arlington and Boylston Streets across from the Public Garden.  The 235,000sf complex, which will be exclusively leased to Bain & Company as its Boston headquarters will also include ground floor retail.  In addition, 80 East Berkley is approved for 300,000sf of life science lab/office space.

 

Active in civic and philanthropic endeavors in the Boston community, Mr. Druker serves or has served on the boards of Beth Israel Hospital, Belmont Hill School, Friends of the Public Garden, Massachusetts Horticultural Society, the New England Aquarium, Boston Foundation for Architecture, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Franklin & Marshall College and others.  He has also served on the boards of The Museum of Fine Arts, Institute of Contemporary Arts, and The Children’s Museum. Mr. Druker also served on Mayor White’s Linkage Committee, which established the current linkage program that has been in existence since 1984.  He was the president of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board in 2000.  In 2005, Mr. Druker became Chairman of the New Center for Arts and Culture to be designed by Daniel Libeskind, which was intended to sit on the new Rose Kennedy Greenway; however it was never executed.  The New Center became the Jewish Arts Collaborative and thrives today.

 

Mr. Druker is an active member of the Downtown Crossing Business Improvement District Executive Committee, which he helped found in Boston’s retail district, the Boylston Street Zoning Committee, and PruPac, the citizen’s review group which oversaw the redevelopment of the Prudential Center.  He was chairman of the Artery Business Design Review Committee that helped to determine what was to be designed and developed over the twenty-seven acres resulting from the depression of the Central Artery, the Big Dig, and he is also a member of ABC’s executive committee.  From 1981 to 1984, he was director for the New England states for the International Council of Shopping Centers.
 

Mr. Druker was a member of the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s urban design faculty from 1976 through 1983.  He has also lectured at the Harvard Business School, Columbia Graduate School of Architecture and Planning, the Harvard Real Estate Forum, and the MIT Center for Real Estate Development.  Mr. Druker also served as a member of the National Endowment for the Arts design arts policy panel in 1983–1984.  He completed his undergraduate studies at Franklin & Marshall College and his graduate studies at Columbia University Graduate School of Business.  He was also a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design where he has served as a member of the Visiting Committee, the Dean’s Leadership Council and has chaired the Strategic Planning Committee.