Bob Stark steps down as CEO of Stark Enterprises; Ezra Stark takes the helm

Real estate developer Bob Stark, the founder and CEO of Cleveland-based Stark Enterprises, is passing the torch to the next generation.

His oldest son, Ezra, is taking the helm as part of a leadership transition announced Friday, May 6. Bob Stark will remain involved as the company’s president and chairman.

“I’ve had a pretty good run,” the elder Stark, 70, said in a news release. “As much as I’d love to continue on as CEO, I’m more than content with the culture and legacy that I have built here.”

Ezra Stark, 39, joined the family business in 2006 and has served as chief operating officer since 2014. He has expanded the company’s footprint into new markets and product types, including single-family rental properties.

Brian Midlik, the company’s chief investment officer, is taking on the COO role. He joined the business in 2007 as a financial analyst.

“Both Ezra and Brian have shown incredible aptitude as leaders in their time here, and they have an amazing support system from top to bottom with the team at Stark Enterprises,” Bob Stark said in the news release. “The company is in very good hands, and I’m confident they’ll continue to do great things together … but I won’t be too far if they need me.”

Stark Enterprises owns and manages more than 8 million square feet of real estate, with an aggregate value of more than $2 billion. The company’s marquee projects include the Crocker Park lifestyle center in Westlake; the Eton Chagrin Boulevard shopping center in Woodmere; and the Beacon apartment tower in downtown Cleveland.

With an outsize presence and bold ideas, Bob Stark has been a high-profile player in Cleveland real estate for decades.

The son of a retail developer, he launched Stark Enterprises during law school in 1978 and built the company into a developer and owner of shopping centers and mixed-use properties. Over the years, he also has floated ambitious visions for projects in downtown Cleveland.

Stark Enterprises still controls a large development site in the Gateway District, north of Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. That site was earmarked for a towering project called NuCLEus, but the long-simmering deal dissolved during the pandemic. Stark still aspires to develop the 3-acre property, Ezra Stark told Crain’s in February.

“I’d like to express direct gratitude for my father,” he said in Friday’s news release, “for being my mentor, for being my teacher, for being one of my best friends and entrusting me to lead the company and expand upon his company and his legacy.”

The oldest of four children, Ezra Stark obtained a master’s degree in real estate development, after studies at Brandeis University and New York University, and held leadership roles in leasing, development and asset management at Stark Enterprises before becoming COO.

He’s becoming the lead decision-maker at the company at a moment of generational shifts in the Northeast Ohio real estate industry, as millennial leaders rise at family-owned businesses or strike out on their own to tackle entrepreneurial projects.

“Similar to myself … Ezra was raised on this business and what it means and what it represents,” Bob Stark said in a video posted on the company’s website. “He knows that if you want to find the best opportunities to do the kind of things that we do, in the best places possible, we have to expand.

“It’s the next generation of Stark Enterprises, which I’m happy to say is in the hands of someone who is smarter, and faster, and more capable than I am.”