Giving up Goodwin gig, Chris Corrada strikes out on his own

After decade-long stints with Riverstone Properties and East West, Chris Corrada has launched Double C Real Estate, the name a nod to a family nickname. (Jonathan Spiers photos)

Bill Goodwin’s right-hand real estate man is relinquishing his post and striking out on his own.

Chris Corrada, who has led Goodwin’s Riverstone Properties for over a decade, has parted ways with the company to start his own consulting firm, Double C Real Estate.

He’s also joining up with One South Commercial, where he’s moved his brokerage license and will represent buyers and sellers as an associate broker.

For Corrada, 47, the move fulfills a lifelong goal to start his own real estate business. He said his aim is for the consulting and brokerage work to ultimately lead to doing his own investments and development deals.

“I wanted to do it while I still am young and have a lot of energy. I didn’t want to do it when I was 55,” Corrada said. “I have a great team (at Riverstone), so I was comfortable that I wasn’t leaving them in the lurch and leaving them in good shape with good people, so that timing was good. And thankfully the Goodwin family was extremely gracious about it and supportive.”

Corrada acknowledged that he’s giving up a coveted gig, leading the real estate arm for Goodwin’s Riverstone Group and working – and learning – directly from the longtime local businessman and philanthropist.

“It was a hard decision. On the surface you would say, ‘Well, that sounds like the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,'” Corrada said and laughed. “But I’ve always wanted to do this for myself. I feel like I’ve learned so much there, I have so much to offer.”

Goodwin is the retired chairman and president of CCA Industries, the diversified holding company whose business portfolio includes The Jefferson Hotel. Goodwin also has experience going out on his own, having left a job with IBM to start his own business in the early 1970s. Corrada said his boss was understanding and supportive of his decision, though he acknowledged that breaking the news to Goodwin was difficult.

“It was one of the hardest things I ever did,” Corrada said. “He was incredibly encouraging. Bill’s an entrepreneur and loves entrepreneurship, and he was very happy for me and wants to continue to work together in whatever way we can, and possibly even invest in deals together and maintain a close relationship. It ended up being the best-case scenario.”

Bill Goodwin at an event in 2015. (BizSense file photo)

Goodwin, who remains active with CCA and Riverstone, lauded Corrada’s contributions over his 13 years with the firm.

“I’m sorry he is not with us, but I have every desire to want to see him do it well,” Goodwin said. “I have admiration for people who go out on their own. I did that a long time ago now: 1971.

“He’s a good, smart guy; worked hard,” Goodwin said. “Plus, he’s nice … and we needed what he could do, so we were appreciative of his work.”

Corrada led a team of about 20 at Riverstone that included asset managers, a development manager and analyst, along with shared support staff such as in-house legal and accounting personnel. Goodwin said he is actively looking for a replacement and has not lined up Corrada’s successor yet.

“We’re hoping we find a look-alike for Chris, and we’ll be real happy,” Goodwin said. “There certainly are no hard feelings between anybody here and himself.”

A Monacan High School grad, Corrada said his new consulting firm’s name is a nod to his dad, who calls him “Double C.” For his consulting work, he said he’ll apply what he learned from his time at Riverstone, as well as his 10 years prior with local developer East West and from Jack Boykin when Corrada was a graduate assistant in VCU’s real estate school, where he earned his MBA after his undergrad years at East Carolina.

Describing his consulting as something between the brokerage community and investment management, Corrada added, “That’s something unique I can offer without spending a lot of time as a consultant: to just help families and businesses review what they’ve got and come up with a strategy for it, and that may lead to buying or selling something.”

To that end, Corrada is aligning himself with One South Commercial, the local firm led by Tom Rosman that broke off from One South Realty Group last year when the brokerage’s residential arm joined up with Samson Properties. Corrada said One South Commercial becoming its own brokerage was something he wanted to be a part of.

“I’ve known Tom Rosman for over 20 years and we’ve been friends. That seemed like the logical place for me,” Corrada said, “somewhere boutique and small and that does a lot of things in the city, which I love.”

Rosman said the 11-person brokerage will benefit from Corrada’s time at Riverstone and East West. Corrada will work out of the brokerage’s forthcoming office, which Rosman said it’s homing in on.

At East West, Corrada helped develop urban infill projects like the Lofts at Cary Place condos at Cary and Meadow streets, the Townes at Cary Place at Cary Street and Allen Avenue, and the Boulder Parke townhomes off Jahnke Road. He said infills would continue to be a focus for him in a market he described as “extremely constrained” due to higher interest rates and time needed to secure property entitlements.

“I see that as an opportunity to find creative ways to do smaller projects, to bring some for-sale housing to the market,” he said.

At Riverstone, Corrada helped guide the development of CenterPointe in Midlothian, a 700-acre development that’s taking shape near another of Riverstone’s holdings, the 300-acre Roseland site south of the Route 288-Woolridge Road interchange. He also managed the Scott Farm land in Henrico that Riverstone sold for the planned GreenCity development.

For 10 of his 13 years at Riverstone, Corrada worked in tandem with fellow principal Jeff Galanti, who switched roles in 2022 to lead Red Gates Foundation, a nonprofit established by the estate of Goodwin’s son, Hunter.

Corrada with Jeff Galanti in 2015. The two led Riverstone Properties in tandem for 10 of Corrada’s 13 years there. (BizSense file photo)

Asked about his favorite project at Riverstone, Corrada pointed to its $100 million purchase and subsequent renovation of the James Center downtown.

“Being able to modernize that and make it a place where people want to be, everybody talks about the doom and gloom of office, but it just shows you: Companies want to be in a nice place,” he said. “It’s not that they don’t want to be in offices; they don’t want to be in a tired office. They want to be in a place that inspires their employees to want to come to the office.”

As for what insights and knowledge he learned from Goodwin, Corrada answered “a multitude of things.”

“One great lesson I learned from Bill was you never lose any money not doing a deal. That is something I very much take to heart,” he said. “There’s part of the development community that’s kind of seat-of-the-pants or there’s a little cowboy aspect to it. That’s not who I am. I’m going to want to really do all the homework.

“That’s part of what Bill’s strength and success has been: just knowing more than everybody else, understanding all of the bits and pieces of a deal. And when you do, it’s just not so risky anymore. It’s a way to de-risk the deal, by doing a little more work than everybody else.”