John F. “Jack” Weir is the Principal and President of Eastwind Development, LLC. Eastwind, based in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, was founded in 2007 and focuses on the development of multifamily rental housing throughout the state of Florida. Eastwind has developed market, independent senior, workforce and affordable rental residential communities. Eastwind has completed seven residential rental communities in Palm Beach County and a total of twenty multifamily rental developments over the last eight years. It recently opened The District Flats in the West Palm Beach Warehouse District, and Solera at City Centre in Palm Beach Gardens. Eastwind has successfully developed over 3,000 units, and has four projects, totalling over 1,000 units, in predevelopment. At present, Eastwind is primarily focused on the development of conventional market, independent senior and workforce residential communities, and has also participated in a number of mixed-use projects with several commercial partners.
Prior to starting Eastwind, Weir was Senior Vice President of Creative Choice Homes, Inc., in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, from 1994-2007. Mr. Weir served as chief operating officer for the company, was responsible for all strategic initiatives, project financing, and oversight of acquisition and development activities, where was responsible for the financing, closing and development of over 40 multifamily projects involving over 6,000 multifamily units in Florida and five other states.
He has extensive experience in arranging construction, permanent, mezzanine loan and equity financing from a wide range of banking, insurance and institutional capital sources for conventional properties. On the affordable side, he is well-versed in the intricacies of the housing tax credit program, has extensive experience with multifamily tax-exempt bond and credit enhancement programs, as well as all major federal, state and local public loan programs.
Mr. Weir previously founded and led Local Initiatives Managed Assets Corporation (LIMAC), one of the first firms to securitize long-term fixed rate mortgages for multifamily properties. LIMAC was based in New York and was the secondary market affiliate of Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), and is now known as Community Development Trust. Prior to his involvement in housing finance, Mr. Weir was a corporate and securities attorney with the firm of Debevoise and Plimpton in New York City. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, attended the University of St. Andrews in Scotland on a Rotary Fellowship, and received a B.A. in History from the University of Scranton. He has been admitted to the bar in Florida, New York and New Jersey. Mr. Weir is presently the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the nonprofit Housing Leadership Council of Palm Beach County, Chairman of the Housing Policy Subcommittee of the Economic Council, a member of the Palm Beach County Workforce Housing Steering Committee, and was previously Chairman of the West Palm Beach Affordable Housing Advisory Committee. He was previously a Board member of the Florida Coalition of Affordable Housing Providers (CAHP).