Gina Lavery, M.C.P.

Gina Lavery is President and Principal of ESI where she leads strategy and analysis that helps clients make confident decisions about investments, programs, and place-based growth. For nearly a decade at ESI, she’s focused her work where economic development, real estate, urban planning overlap—especially when the key questions are “what’s the impact, what’s feasible, and what should we do next?”

Gina bridges technical analysis with a pragmatic approach to providing recommendations to ESI’s clients. Leading the firm’s economic development and sector strategy practice, her clients span a wide spectrum—from local and regional public-sector partners to mission-driven institutions and private-sector stakeholders—who need decision-ready answers grounded in real-world market conditions. She frequently advises on big, high-visibility economic development and real estate initiatives, especially when the work needs to connect market realities, public-sector goals, and deal structuring. She has supported major projects in the Philadelphia region including the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Budd Bioworks, the Bellwether District, as well as Fort Monmouth’s Netflix studio development. Across these engagements, she helps clients pressure-test assumptions, quantify expected outcomes, and advance to implementation.

In addition to development-focused work, Gina has deep experience evaluating the impact of place-based initiatives, especially investments in parks, open space, and trail networks that are meant to generate long-term economic and community returns. Her clients in this space include Atlanta Beltline, Inc., the East Coast Greenway Alliance, and Trans Canada Trail. She also advises on incentives strategy and public financing, supporting projects that have secured more than $1 billion in combined local, state, and federal economic development incentives, helping clients align capital stacks with policy requirements, accountability, and real-world implementation constraints.

Gina’s background combines practical real estate research experience with stakeholder management and external communications for large institutions. Before joining ESI, she was a research analyst at Jones Lang LaSalle focused on commercial real estate market research in Greater Philadelphia. From 2009 to 2016, she worked at the University of Pennsylvania in the Office of Government and Community Affairs, tracking policy changes effecting the University and leading communications and outreach with local government to advance institutional priorities and elevate Penn’s economic and social impact narrative.

Gina earned a B.A. in Political Science and European History and a Master of City and Regional Planning from Penn’s Weitzman School of Design, where her Smart Cities concentration emphasized using data and modeling to design better cities. She’s an active member of Urban Land Institute Philadelphia, Development Workshop, Commercial Real Estate Women Greater Philadelphia (CREW), and serves on the board of the Riverfront North Partnership. Gina also sits on Urban Land Institute’s National Placemaking Council.