Independent underwriting for capital decisions that require certainty.
Aquila Strategic Advisory provides institutional-grade financial analysis, modeling, and written advisory work product to developers, investors, and capital providers evaluating commercial real estate transactions.
Discuss an Engagement View ServicesAnalysis built for the decision, not the pitch.
Aquila Strategic Advisory LLC is an independent advisory firm serving sponsors, family offices, lenders, and investment groups that need a disciplined, third-party view of a transaction before capital is committed.
The firm's work product is analytical and strategic — underwriting, financial modeling, capital structuring, due diligence, entitlement and development strategy, and written advisory memoranda — and is prepared to the standard a credit committee or investment committee would apply. Engagements are scoped to the client's decision rather than to a fixed menu of services.
Aquila is led by a principal with more than two decades of operating experience in real estate development, structured finance, and capital markets, and applies that perspective to each engagement: the analysis reflects how a deal is actually financed, entitled, built, and sold.
Capabilities
Aquila works across the full life cycle of a real estate transaction — from initial screening through capitalization, execution, and disposition. Each engagement is defined around the client's specific decision; the areas below are representative, not exhaustive.
Underwriting & Financial Analysis
Rigorous analysis of acquisitions, developments, and recapitalizations at any stage of evaluation.
- Opportunity screening and go / no-go assessment
- Dynamic pro forma and cash-flow modeling
- Revenue, expense, and market analysis
- Development and acquisition budget review
- Return analysis, sensitivities, and distribution waterfalls
- Investment memoranda and committee presentations
Capital Structuring & Debt Analysis
Independent evaluation of how a transaction should be capitalized and financed.
- Debt sizing across construction, bridge, agency, HUD, and bank executions
- Capital-stack design and equity requirement analysis
- Term-sheet and loan-document financial review
- Refinance, recapitalization, and exit strategy analysis
- Joint venture and partnership economics
Development & Transaction Advisory
Strategic and analytical support to sponsors, owners, lenders, and their advisors.
- Entitlement, zoning, and development program strategy
- Due diligence management and third-party report review
- Feasibility studies and highest-and-best-use analysis
- Asset repositioning and business-plan evaluation
- Owner's representation and sub-consultant support to development, construction, and advisory teams
- Special projects as defined by the client
Representative property types
Experience spans the residential, commercial, and specialty sectors, across ground-up development, value-add acquisition, and repositioning strategies. The categories below are representative; the firm evaluates any income-producing or development real estate where disciplined underwriting is required.
Multifamily
Market-rate, mixed-income, and affordable rental communities, including high-rise and garden formats.
Build-to-Rent Single-Family
Horizontal rental communities and single-family subdivisions, including agency and HUD financing eligibility.
Condominium & Condo-Hotel
For-sale residential and branded condo-hotel programs, including absorption, pricing, and deposit-structure analysis.
Townhome & Small-Lot Residential
Infill for-sale and for-rent townhome developments.
Student Housing
Purpose-built student housing, including bond-financed and public-private structures.
Hospitality
Select-service and lifestyle hotels and hotel-condominium hybrids.
Office
Suburban and urban office assets, including conversion and repositioning scenarios.
Retail
Neighborhood, grocery-anchored, and mixed-use ground-floor retail.
Light Industrial & Flex
Small-bay industrial, flex, and warehouse-distribution space, including adaptive reuse and conversion scenarios.
Land & Entitlement
Large-tract entitlement and land-development strategies, including phasing and residual land value analysis.
Mixed-Use
Vertically and horizontally integrated programs combining residential, retail, office, hospitality, and parking components.
Specialty & Alternative
Self-storage, senior housing, data and medical uses, and other property types evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
Standards applied to every engagement
The value of an analysis rests on the defensibility of its assumptions and the clarity of its conclusions. Aquila's process is designed so that work product withstands committee scrutiny.
Rents, comparables, costs, taxes, and insurance are grounded in market data and documented sources, with the basis for each assumption identified.
Financing and capital structures are evaluated across alternative paths so the sponsor understands the trade-offs in proceeds, cost, and timing.
Each analysis defines the base, downside, and upside cases explicitly, with the downside modeled as a realistic exit, not a footnote.
Models, memoranda, and presentations are formatted for direct use in investment and credit committee review.
Adam F. Adler
Adam Adler has more than twenty years of experience in finance and real estate development, spanning capital markets, underwriting, entitlements, and debt and equity structuring. His perspective is that of an operator: for the past six years he has served as a principal in a South Florida development firm, capitalizing and executing multifamily, condominium, student housing, single-family, and mixed-use projects — experience that informs how Aquila evaluates the transactions its clients bring forward.
Previously, he served as Chief Investment Officer and Director of Suburban Development at Terra, with responsibility for master-planned communities and commercial real estate. Before Terra, he was Vice President of Structured Finance at Bayview Financial, where he helped securitize more than $16 billion of bonds backed by residential and small-balance commercial loans. He began his career as an analyst at Burger King Corporation, working on franchise restructurings.
- EducationMaster of Science in Finance and MBA, Northeastern University; BA in Economics, Cornell University
- Prior rolesCIO and Director of Suburban Development, Terra; VP, Structured Finance, Bayview Financial; Analyst, Burger King Corporation
- RecognitionSouth Florida Business Journal 40 Under 40, 2017
- FocusUnderwriting, capital structuring, entitlement strategy, development finance
- Based inSouth Florida
What Aquila does — and does not — do
Aquila Strategic Advisory LLC provides financial analysis, modeling, and written advisory work product. The firm does not procure, negotiate, solicit, or arrange the purchase, sale, lease, or financing of any property or any security, and does not act as a broker-dealer, investment adviser, placement agent, finder, real estate broker, appraiser, accountant, or attorney.
Compensation is consideration for analytical and advisory services rendered and is not contingent upon or measured by the amount of capital raised or the identity of any capital source. The firm's work product does not constitute investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. All decisions regarding a transaction are made solely by the client.
Discuss an engagement
Engagements are accepted on a transaction-specific basis. Provide a brief description of the property and the decision under consideration, and the firm will respond with a proposed scope.
- Email[email protected]
- LocationSouth Florida — serving clients nationally
- EntityAquila Strategic Advisory LLC, a Delaware limited liability company