Last December, while eating pasta in brodo at Jupiter in Rockefeller Center, EB Kelly glanced up to see Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr from the neighboring French brasserie grab seats at the bar. The chef duo has a hit restaurant on their hands with Le Rock, and that night, they sat enjoying post-shift drinks and communing with the Jupiter team. For most, the scene would be insignificant. For Kelly, the head of Rockefeller Center and senior managing director of developer Tishman Speyer, it was like witnessing the Big Bang.

“In that moment, I saw that we were delivering on the proposition of building a community of people who were committed not only to their own success but also to supporting one another, and building off one another, riffing off one another,” says Kelly. “It’s like we created a college campus for the best chefs in New York.”