culture Archives - Page 7 of 7

Inside Our Team: Accounting

Posted on July 13, 2020September 1, 2020 by Nancy

The backbone of our success at Optima is the way our team seamlessly communicates, collaborates and comes together. Back in February, we got to know our property management team, and today, we’ll dive into what makes our accounting team so fantastic.

With accounting operating as “the language of business,” we rely on our accounting team to communicate crucial financial information both internally and with our stakeholders. Their ability to communicate through numbers, data and insights is crucial when we seek to build out strategic partnerships, make high-level decisions and continue operating seamlessly, efficiently and smartly.

We couldn’t do what we do without the help of our accounting team — and they couldn’t do what they do without an internal accounting team that celebrates its own culture and values. Here’s what they had to say about working on the accounting team

When asked what makes the team work, Chrissy Battistella, Optima’s Controller, says “Compatible personalities and great leadership.” Aurelia Mustafa, a Property Accountant, second that, saying it’s “a balance blend of personalities and communication.”

As for what they love most about working on the accounting team? Battistella says, “The people. Each team member contributes equally to the team, we all lend a hand to one another when needed. There is always an open line of communication between all the team members and each with their coach.” Szilvia Springer, a Senior Staff Accountant, adds, “Everyone has clear responsibilities, there is no micromanagement. We know what and when to get done.”

With the team being so tight-knit, it’s only natural that they learn from one another on a daily basis. Battistella says what she learned from her coworkers is “patience and teamwork. It takes a lot as a coach to effectively manage my time helping each team member, but they are all patient and respectful of my time as I am of theirs.” Mustafa chimes in, sharing, “They are a sense of support though we work on entirely different projects. Our weekly meetings allow our team to express ourselves speaking on projects we are working on and that sometimes lead to personal conversations in an organic way where we find ourselves exchanging opinions/experiences.”

With our holistic business model that encompasses architecture, development, general contracting, sales/brokerage, asset/property management, and shared services, each of our talented teams are part of what makes Optima great. Think you would be a good fit on the Optima team? Check out our current open positions to inquire about joining our team.

Inside the Phoenix Art Museum

Posted on July 6, 2020May 23, 2024 by Nancy

We know and love Phoenix, home to Optima Biltmore Towers, as an urban oasis and cultural hub, where the arts are everywhere you look. At the center of Phoenix’s ever-evolving and expanding arts scene is the Phoenix Art Museum, an institution that’s been around for sixty years.

History of the Museum

Although the museum has been around for 60 years, its community ties go even deeper. In 1915, just three years after Arizona achieved statehood, the Phoenix Women’s Club was formed. The club used their platform to establish an art exhibition committee, whose goal was to improve the quality of art offerings at the Arizona State Fair and to purchase one piece of art each year. Their vision, and collection, became the foundational basis for the museum’s collection today, now consisting of more than 20,000 art objects.

Sculptural exhibit at the Phoenix Art Museum — Credit: Tomwsulcer on Wikimedia Commons, made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

The Museum Today

Today, the Phoenix Art Museum is considered the largest art museum in the southwestern United States, engaging 300,000 local and visiting art lovers alike each year. Their mission? “To ignite imaginations, create connections, and serve as a vibrant destination, a brave space, for all people who wish to experience the transformative power of art.” They don’t just operate as a museum to achieve this — they’re a vibrant community center and host to festivals, live performances, independent art films and educational programs, both inside and outside the museum walls.

For those planning their visit, expect to enjoy American, Asian, European, Latin American, Western American, modern and contemporary art and fashion design, as well as an interactive children’s space, photography exhibitions (held in partnership with the Center for Creative Photography) and a landscaped sculpture garden.

There’s no shortage of things to discover, whether you’re a first-time or regular visitor. While the museum is temporarily closed due to COVID-19, you can explore their full list of collection onlines here. And when their doors do open once more, you can learn more about planning your visit here, or view a calendar of upcoming events here.

Neighborhood Spotlight: Wilmette

Posted on June 24, 2020May 21, 2024 by Nancy

The serene Chicago-suburbs neighbor of Evanston, Wilmette offers proximity to the hustle and bustle of the city while also serving as an oasis of coffee shops, local boutiques and expansive parkscapes. Wilmette is home to three of our communities, Lake Courts, 1618 Sheridan Road and Optima Center Wilmette, and today we’re spotlighting why we, our residents and our commercial tenants love this Chicago suburb.

Outdoor Leisure

Bordered by Lake Michigan on the east and sprawling golf courses on the west, Wilmette is the perfect suburban hub for those that love leisurely outdoor activities. For lakefront fanatics, Gillson Park is an expansive reserve with beach access, perfect for swimming, sailing, picnicking, tennis, hiking and more. For casual and competitive golf hobbyists alike, Wilmette Golf Club is the best public golf course challenge in the area.

Bahai Temple. Credit: Teemu008 on Wikimedia Commons, icensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Cultural Institutions

No Chicago suburb is complete without the inclusion of a wide-ranging and diverse array of cultural institutions. Wilmette is the proud home to the Baháʼí House of Worship, one of only eight of its kind. The continental temple is an architectural marvel, worth the visit just to explore its gardens and interior and learn more about the faith. The Wilmette Historical Museum is also a fantastic local resource for learning more about the city’s story and roots.

Shopping and Dining

Wilmette’s central business district, conveniently located near public transportation, is a distinctively different shopping experience that includes an abundance of restaurants and specialty stores. Explore the Wilmette French Market, an outdoor shopping experience with produce, jewelry and more. Restaurants in the area include everyone’s favorite, Walker Bros. Original Pancake House, Convito Cafe and Market, Pescadero and countless more.

Stay tuned for more neighborhood spotlights on our other Optima communities.

Neighborhood Spotlight: Evanston

Posted on May 11, 2020May 20, 2024 by Nancy

Just north of Chicago, Evanston merges the best of city and suburban living with a quaint-yet-thriving downtown, ample access to public transportation, the Northwestern University campus and a prime lakeside location. The site of high-rise buildings downtown, beautiful historic houses on tree-lined streets, and several Optima condominiums (Optima Towers, Optima Views, Optima Horizons, 840 Michigan, North Pointe), today we’re diving into what makes Evanston a great place to call home.

Bahai Temple. Credit: Teemu008 on Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Arts & Culture

While Chicago’s iconic museums are only a purple-line train ride away, Evanston is home to its own thriving local art scene. The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University hosts dynamic and global art exhibits, while institutions such as the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian and the Halim Time & Glass Museum showcase unique exhibits of their own. Right next to Evanston, the Wilmette neighborhood is home to the Bahai Temple, a stunningly architected house of worship that’s worth a visit just for a summertime stroll through its gardens alone.

Shopping and Dining

Evanston’s downtown core is the proud home to hyperlocal boutiques and restaurants that range from traditional staples to niche experiences. For more adventurous shoppers, The Spice House is a global fresh-ground store going sixteen years strong, while Dave’s Down to Earth Rock Shop is a rock/jewelry/bead shop with a basement fossil museum. Meanwhile, Vintage Garage Chicago is a monthly flea market that takes place in the lot just next door to Optima Views.

It’s also never hard to find a good bite to eat in Evanston, with fan-favorites like Found, a hot spot offering seasonal farm-to-table fare, and Dinkel’s Bakery, the only place to be on Fat Tuesday.

Urban Nature Experiences

With a prime lakeside location, naturally Evanston has an abundance of lush parks, beaches and lakefront trails perfect for strolling, jogging and biking. Evanston’s lakeshore is also home to the historic Grosse Pointe Lighthouse, an iconic landmark bordered by the beautiful Harley Clarke Mansion and Lighthouse beach. And closer to downtown, the Merrick Rose Garden offers temporary reprieve from streets and storefronts for those who want to stop and smell the roses.

Stay tuned for more neighborhood spotlights on our other Optima communities.

Staying Connected Amidst COVID-19

Posted on April 29, 2020September 1, 2020 by Nancy

At Optima, we operate with an intense passion for creating together. Ours is a highly collaborative team, often communicating in real time to share ideas and inspiration as part of our vertically-integrated business model. With collaborative systems already in place, our team is staying connected as ever during COVID-19, across states, offices, communities and jobsites, with some currently operating from home.

Beth Maher heads up Learning and Development at Optima, placing emphasis on the wellness of our team along the way. We sat down (digitally) with Beth and asked her to share how she’s guiding our team through continuing to stay connected, and continuing to stay well, during this time.

Sharing Wellness Resources

Wellness has always been pivotal in our culture, but Beth shares, “It’s become a priority now more than ever. We want to provide additional wellness support to all our coaches and team members to help guide them through the changes many are experiencing from this new environment.” Wellness resources are being offered universally across our team — from architects to property managers to the construction team — giving all access to meditation and yoga guidance and other activities that can be done no matter where you are. Through our partnership with GROW LMS, we recently rolled out a set of online wellness courses that are available for our entire team.

Staying Connected

“Connectedness is at the core of Optima,” Beth explains. The Optima Wellness Page in the company intranet is just one source of connectivity where many resources are located. All teams continue to communicate seamlessly by regularly hopping onto Microsoft Teams, where we continue to share ideas in real time. We also use the Yammer app, which is a messaging board where we share inspirational quotes and ideas. We continue to engage at a safe distance over video chat too, whether that’s for a quick brainstorming session or to come together for a company-wide trivia night or virtual book club discussion.

Looking to the Future

The current state of the world may prove to be a challenge in some ways, “but we have the resources to keep everyone connected no matter what,” Beth affirms. “I’ve never worked in an organization that has such strong connectivity between its team members and coaches.” Human connection is important now more than ever, and it is this connection we have at Optima that will enable us to stay agile, strong and able to tackle this challenge — together.

The Work of Pablo Picasso

Posted on April 20, 2020May 20, 2024 by Nancy

One of the world’s most iconic creators, Pablo Picasso is globally known as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. His brightly-colored work adorns the walls of our Optima buildings, and today we dive into his life and work.

A Promising Start

Born in Spain in 1881, Picasso was a gifted artist from a young age, receiving lessons early on from his father, who was also a painter. While trained and mentored in academic realism, by the time Picasso was sixteen, his interpretation of Modernism began to attract attention within the art world. Picasso struggled with the close influence of his father, who he fought with frequently, and eventually bounced back and forth between Spain and France to pursue his own distinguished style.

An Expansive Body of Work

Throughout his life, Picasso became known for his range of distinctive styles and contributions to various art movements. His work covered Cubism, Surrealism, Neoclassicism, as well as his famous Blue Period and Rose Period. Having lived in Europe through both World Wars, Picasso’s work is reflective of a world changing rapidly and drastically. While living in a German-occupied Paris during World War II, Picasso continued to create paintings and sculptures, despite the fact that his work did not fit the Nazi ideal of art. By the time Paris was liberated, he was already an international celebrity within the art world, a reputation that continued to grow.

Picasso sculpture in Daley Plaza, 1967. Credit: Dan DeLuca on Flickr Creative Commons, CC BY 2.0 Deed

A Lasting Legacy

Throughout his life, Picasso refined his mastery of painting, sculpting, printmaking, ceramics and stage design, while also dabbling in poetry and film. His art came with a turbulent personal life, including a web of muses, mistresses, wives and grandchildren, which proved complicated when it came to his estate after he passed away in 1973. His legacy was one of rigorous exploration and zealous creativity, solidifying his name as one of the world’s greatest artists.

The Work of Le Corbusier

Posted on March 9, 2020May 20, 2024 by Nancy

Modernism is an approach that has roots going all the way back to the 1920s. Modernist architecture was pioneered by the inventive and contentious Le Corbusier, a Swiss-French architect, urban planner, painter and furniture designer. To better understand Modernism, we’re diving deep into his life, and highly controversial work.

A Controversial Figure

Born Charles-Eduoard Jeanneret-Gris, architect Le Corbusier built chiefly with steel and reinforced concrete, paring design down to its simplest, elemental geometry and form. He developed his famous theory of modern form and minimalist materials when envisioning affordable, prefabricated housing to help rebuild communities after World War I. His vision for prefabrication was only the tip of a strong, nearly utopian, approach to urban planning and architecture.

Villa Savoye Exterior — Villa Savoye in Poissy, Le Corbusier. Photo Timothy Brown, Flickr Creative Commons

His architectural philosophy was groundbreaking and completely contrary to the dominant narrative of the 1920s. Once he established his ideas, he shared them by publishing the seminal L’Espirit Nouveau (1920), where he revealed his famous “five points of architecture.” Three years later, he published Vers une architecture (Towards a New Architecture) (1923), in which he espoused a new, modern architecture informed by applying principles of cars, planes and ships to buildings. Le Corbusier embraced the conflict that arose to his ideas head-on, making bold declarations such as “a house is a machine for living in” and “a curved street is a donkey track; a straight street, a road for men.”

Chair designed by Le Corbusier at Optima Camelview Village

Form, Function, Furniture

Le Corbusier also designed furniture, his approach following suit to his approach to architecture. His furniture, co-designed with Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand, utilized tubular steel that projected a new rationalist aesthetic. Le Corbusier broke down furniture into three types: type-needs, type-furniture and human-limb objects. His rational approach was not without romanticism, as he said, “Certainly, works of art are tools, beautiful tools. And long live the good taste manifested by choice, subtlety, proportion and harmony.”

At Optima, we employ Le Corbusier furniture in our communities, like those in each of the three building lobbies at Optima Old Orchard Woods in Skokie. The furniture functions just as the artist would’ve wanted — as bold, artistic statement pieces, and as functional, rational furniture.

The Arts Club of Chicago

Posted on February 24, 2020September 1, 2020 by Nancy

An iconic creative space in Chicago, The Arts Club of Chicago has been a hub for contemporary art in the Windy City for more than 100 years. Only a five-minute walk from Optima Signature and Optima Chicago Center, The Arts Club of Chicago exhibits international works from both established and emerging artists, breaking new ground for over 100 years. Today, we explore the fascinating history and unique details that make The Arts Club of Chicago a beloved neighbor within our Streeterville community.

A Scandalous Start

Founded in 1916, The Arts Club of Chicago was founded by artists and advocates after The Armory Show garnered negative attention when it exhibited at the Art Institute. As the first major exhibition of modern art in America, Chicagoans were shocked and scandalized. The Club’s founders took note of the negative reception and aimed to normalize modern art by curating exhibits tailored to Chicago, enabling the Club to present new, cutting-edge culture for residents and visitors alike.

Finding a Home

Over the years, the Club has moved from an office space, to Michigan Avenue, to the Wrigley Building; in 1951, it moved to 109 East Ontario Street. The new space was created just for The Arts Club by architectural legend Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Sadly, in 1990, the owner sold the building, which led to The Club’s current John Vinci-designed two-story building located in Streeterville. Although much of Mies’ architectural work was lost in the move, the building remains an homage to his design and his steel staircase was restored and remains the focal point of the first-floor space, adjacent to Alexander Calder’s Red Petals.

The Club Today

Today, The Arts Club offers three or four major public exhibitions a year, along with displaying work from its permanent collection. The Club also offers a broad, rich calendar of programming, bringing lectures, demonstrations, gallery talks, films, music, dance presentations and other educational programming to Chicago, and to our Optima communities.

For hours and visitor information, visit The Arts Club of Chicago website.

Our Beliefs: Growth Mindset

Posted on January 23, 2020September 1, 2020 by Nancy

As part of our culture at Optima, we hold a set of beliefs that helps us align our work with our goals. Internally, these beliefs are reflected in our culture, and externally, they shine through in the way we conduct ourselves with partners, customers, investors, colleagues and members of the community where we build. They embed meaning into our every project, and into our every day.

The first of our beliefs: we operate with a growth mindset.

Since the company’s inception, we have defined growth on our own terms. This confidence to establish our own definition of success has set us on a continuing and collaborative journey, encouraging each member of our team to constantly expand the base of our knowledge in service to our purpose.

Optima was founded by David Hovey Sr. and Eileen Hovey with a mission at its helm. We wanted to create a real estate firm where design leads the process, enabled by our vertically integrated business model. As the owner, architect, general contractor and developer, the degree of freedom that came with allowed us to challenge ourselves, to learn as we went and to improve each time we started something new.

From humble beginnings, we continue to demonstrate our commitment to growth by investing in our team members’ success. This takes the shape of a robust onboarding process for new team members, ensuring a seamless entry into Optima, and by providing continuing, thoughtful mentorship throughout their careers, by redefining our managers as “coaches” that help guide their team to be their most successful selves. We take pride in investing our time and energy into creating unique approaches that ensure our team, and each individual team member, thrives in the future.

And naturally, having a team set up for success allows our projects to be fueled by minds at their best. Therefore, we can tackle the work that we do with an unwavering vigor that allows us to continually learn, adapt and grow. That will always be how Optima operates.

Neighborhood Spotlights: Our Favorite Streeterville Spots

Posted on November 18, 2019September 1, 2020 by Nancy

Home to Optima Signature and Optima Chicago Center, Streeterville is one of Chicago’s many thriving neighborhoods. Nestled just north of the Loop in downtown, the Streeterville area intersects the art, culture, food and event scenes of the Windy City. Here are just a few of our favorite spots:

The Chicago Riverwalk

Whether you’re looking for a fun Friday night out or to learn more about Chicago’s history, the Riverwalk is your destination for a good time. Spend an evening at City Winery’s riverside location, hop on an architectural boat tour or go for a quick jog around downtown Chicago. Although best experienced in the city’s warmer months, the Chicago Riverwalk is a fantastic spot for Optima residents, visitors and locals alike.

The Restaurant Scene

Like the rest of Chicago, Streeterville boasts plenty of amazing restaurants and drinkeries. For a night of fantastic food, The Purple Pig’s tapas, the pasta at Volare Ristorante, or a lobster roll at the Hampton Social are just around the corner. From Sunday brunch to Friday evening date night, Streeterville’s culinary scene doesn’t disappoint.

Streeterville, with Optima Signature in the skyline

The Culture

Within Chicago’s vast cultural ecosystem, Streeterville claims a handful of spectacular museums and organizations. The Museum of Contemporary Art, located up Michigan Avenue, is one of the world’s largest contemporary art venues, established in 1967. One of Chicago’s most iconic destinations, Navy Pier is home to the Children’s Museum, the Chicago Shakespeare Theater and events throughout the year, including EXPO Chicago.

We’re proud to have strong roots in Chicago, and excited to be a contributing part of the Streeterville neighborhood; Stay tuned for more neighborhood spotlights on our other Optima communities.

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Tag: culture