CHICAGO — Evergreen Real Estate Group, a Chicago-based developer of both affordable and market-rate multifamily properties, including communities for seniors and families, has added two employees to vice president positions. John Kennedy joined the company as executive vice president of operations, while existing employee Mary Mauney was promoted from regional supervisor to vice president of property management.
In his newly created position, Kennedy will oversee Evergreen’s national property management portfolio, which comprises more than 8,000 units.
Prior to joining Evergreen, Kennedy was senior vice president at Related Management, with responsibility for the firm’s 7,000-unit Midwest affordable housing portfolio. Prior to that, he worked for Metroplex Inc., a Chicago-based property management firm specializing in affordable housing communities.
Kennedy originally joined Metroplex in 1993 and served in various roles before being appointed president of the company in 2013. Two years later, Related Management acquired Metroplex, and Kennedy continued to lead the portfolio’s operations.
As a licensed attorney, Kennedy also acted as in-house legal counsel for Metroplex, representing the firm on a variety of issues pertaining to fair housing and regulatory compliance, landlord-tenant disputes, employment matters and contract agreements. Before joining Metroplex, Kennedy served as a staff attorney for Sheldon Baskin, Henry Hyatt and Daniel Epstein, an affiliated real estate development group whose business was concentrated in conventional market-rate and government-assisted multifamily housing.
Kennedy received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Marquette University and a juris doctor from the DePaul University School of Law in Chicago.
As Evergreen’s newly appointed vice president of property management, Mauney will work alongside Kennedy in managing the day-to-day operation of the firm’s 8,000-unit portfolio. In addition, Mauney will continue to leverage her experience working with state and federal agencies to secure tax credits needed to finance new developments. She also will ensure individual communities meet various reporting requirements in order to maintain their affordable status.
Before joining Evergreen, Mauney worked as a regional property manager for two multifamily companies in Atlanta from 1986 to 2003, which focused on rural housing, Section 8 and low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) funding. In 2003, she joined National Housing Compliance in Atlanta, which is the performance-based contract administrator in the state of Georgia, where she served as senior asset manager. This led her to become director of the company’s Illinois field office in 2004, where she completed management and occupancy reviews and followed up on Real Estate Assessment Center inspections and tenant concerns for over 400 HUD Section 8 properties in the state of Illinois.
Mauney joined Evergreen in 2013, most recently serving as regional supervisor. In this role, she managed Evergreen’s third-party management contracts while maintaining a portfolio of eight to 10 properties.
Mauney earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology/biology from Oberlin College. In addition, she is a certified property manager through the Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM) and holds an Illinois real estate broker’s license.