At a glance
Firm: The Clarett Group Founder & principal: Veronica ("Ronne") Hackett (Co-founder & CEO) Founded: 1999 (New York City) Headquarters: New York, NY (with later offices in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.) Focus: Ground-up high-rise residential development — condominium and rental towers, plus mixed-use — concentrated in Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn Capital partner: A long-running joint venture with Prudential Real Estate Investors (PREI), which held a majority equity position in the firm Frequent design partner: GKV Architects, among others Portfolio scale: Roughly ten ground-up high-rise residential towers in New York, ranging from about 100,000 to 500,000 square feet each and 13 to 55 stories Signature reputation: Design-forward, architecturally distinctive residential towers of the 2000s cycle; a firm whose New York operation wound down in 2011 for financing reasons rather than any quality failure Source: The Roebling Team at Compass — verified against public records, court filings, and published reporting. July 2026.
Who The Clarett Group is
The Clarett Group was the New York development firm of Veronica "Ronne" Hackett, one of the era's most established women developers and, by her own billing, among the first noted independent woman developers in the country. Hackett came to development through the institutional side of real estate — a career that began at Citibank's real-estate group and ran through senior roles at a money-center bank in London, corporate real estate at national retailers, and roughly a decade at Park Tower Realty, where she worked on the Times Square redevelopment and 60 Wall Street before founding Clarett in 1999.
For a buyer, the relevant point is what that pedigree produced: Clarett built a specific kind of building — ground-up, architecturally ambitious high-rise residential, developed with institutional capital and a taste for design. The firm partnered closely with Prudential Real Estate Investors, which took a majority equity stake and sat on Clarett's board, and it used that backing to build across Manhattan and into Downtown Brooklyn through the 2000s boom.
The firm's arc is also part of the story. When financing dried up after the 2008 downturn, Clarett could not fund its next generation of projects, and its New York operation wound down in early 2011. Hackett went on to lead U.S. development for Brookfield, where she influenced the Manhattan West plan; the firm's West Coast operation continued separately as Clarett West. None of that reflects on the buildings Clarett actually delivered — which is the part that matters to a buyer today.
What they build
Clarett's signature was the ground-up, design-driven residential tower — a mix of condominium and rental buildings, scaled from boutique to full high-rise, and often distinguished by an architectural or artistic gesture. The firm's most consistent design collaborator was GKV Architects, whose contemporary, glass-forward buildings became the closest thing to a Clarett house style. Individual projects reached for distinctive detail: commissioned artwork, a Baccarat partnership on an East Side tower, and slender air-rights towers that maximized light and views.
The firm typically developed in the boutique-to-mid high-rise band — buildings measured in dozens of residences at the condominium end and several hundred units at the rental end — rather than assembling the supertall trophy sites of its largest peers. The product was pitched at the luxury and upper-middle tiers of its neighborhoods, and delivered with the finish level and full-service staffing those markets expect.
Buildings by The Clarett Group
Clarett projects already profiled on this site:
- 130 West 19th Street (Chelsea House) — the GKV-designed 2005 full-service Chelsea condominium, a clean, well-located 64-residence building on a quiet mid-block
- 308 East 38th Street (The Vantage) — originally developed by Clarett as the 2001 Murray Hill rental "The Montrose" (Meltzer/Mandl Architects); later sold and converted to a condominium by a separate sponsor, so Clarett's role is as the building's original developer only
Other notable Clarett work (pages to follow): Sky House (11 East 29th Street), a 55-story FXFOWLE-designed condominium built on air rights from the neighboring Church of the Transfiguration; The Brooklyner (111 Lawrence Street), a GKV-designed rental tower that was the tallest building in Brooklyn on completion; Place 57 (207 East 57th Street), a glass condominium developed in partnership with Baccarat; 2770 Broadway (The Opus) on the Upper West Side; and 200 West End Avenue, developed through the firm's Clarett Capital joint venture with Prudential.
Track record and market performance
Clarett's record tracks the cycle it built in. Product delivered during the mid-2000s boom generally leased and sold as the luxury and upper-tier inventory it was designed to be, and the firm earned a reputation for architecturally distinctive, well-finished buildings. Where the record turned harder was at the end of the cycle: projects delivering into the 2008–2010 downturn faced a weaker market, and the firm ultimately could not finance its forward pipeline — the reason its New York operation closed in 2011.
For a buyer, the useful read is to separate the firm's fate from its finished buildings. Clarett's New York condominiums have been in the resale market for the better part of two decades and trade as the full-service, design-forward buildings they were built to be. The firm's demise was a financing and market-timing failure, not a construction one.
Reputation and what a buyer should know
On build quality, Clarett's completed buildings have a clean public record. Reviewing published reporting, court filings, and public records, we found no construction-defect litigation, no condo-board suit over building quality, and no verified pattern of facade, water, mechanical, or structural complaints at a Clarett-developed building. That is a meaningful finding for a firm whose buildings are now well into their resale life.
The one litigation matter that surfaced at a Clarett building — a governance dispute at Sky House between a unit owner and the condominium's board of managers — is an ordinary board-governance case, not a construction-defect or sponsor-quality claim, and does not implicate the building's construction. The firm's genuinely adverse history is financial rather than physical: the inability to secure financing that closed the New York office in 2011, the souring of a Brooklyn rental-to-condo bet at The Brooklyner, and a Brooklyn condominium project left mid-construction when the firm wound down. Those are downturn and capital-market outcomes, not defect claims, and should not be read as such.
For a buyer, standard new-development-era diligence applies to any Clarett resale — read the offering plan and current financials, confirm lien and title status, and review the building's reserve and capital-project history — with no red flag specific to this sponsor's construction record.
The Roebling Team on Clarett buildings
We publish developer profiles because a buyer choosing a new-construction or recently-converted condominium is, in part, betting on the developer — its quality, its staying power, and its record when things go wrong. The Roebling Team at Compass tracks the sponsors behind Manhattan's luxury inventory building by building, and we bring that context to every new-development transaction: what the developer has built, how those buildings have held value, and what to verify before you sign.
If you're evaluating a Clarett building — or weighing it against another sponsor's product — a 30-minute consultation is the right starting point.
Corey Cohen, Principal · The Roebling Team at Compass 646.939.7375 · c.cohen@compass.com
This developer profile reflects publicly available information — including NYC public records, court filings, and published reporting — and The Roebling Team's transaction experience. It is provided for research purposes and is not legal advice; nothing here alleges wrongdoing or building defects beyond what the cited public record supports. The Roebling Team at Compass does not represent The Clarett Group. © 2026 The Roebling Team at Compass.