Global real estate firm Lincoln Property Co. has begun a new chapter after its more than half century of history, naming a new chief investment officer and head of investment management to create a new kind of real estate investing through value-add property throughout the United States.

The Dallas-based real estate firm, backed by private equity firm Stone Point Capital, has named Maria Stamolis as its new chief investment officer and head of investment management. Stamolis is responsible for broadening Lincoln's relationships and offerings with institutional investors. In all, Lincoln's investments include about $3 billion in assets under management as well as $6 billion in assets for separately managed pension fund portfolios throughout the globe.

Stamolis, who began her new role in March, has a more than decade-long friendship with the firm's co-CEO of Lincoln Property Co., David Binswanger before a transaction that changed the trajectory of the real estate firm closed in February. That change-up at Lincoln presented the longtime Canyon Partners executive an opportunity to fill a key role with the real estate firm and help begin its next iteration as a company.

"Lincoln has an investment management business that has been in place for well over two decades, with me helping lead the growth of that business into the future," Stamolis told CoStar News. "It's an important initiative that internally, we call 2.0. We will be raising discretionary capital with the intention of investing on behalf of institutional investors and leveraging our incredible team and vertically integrated company to provide a unique value proposition to the marketplace."

The real estate investment vehicle is still being developed, with Lincoln Property expecting to unveil the details of the capital raise in late summer. The real estate firm expects to invest in "diverse product types across value-add real estate" throughout the United States, said Stamolis, who joins Lincoln from a 16-year career with Canyon Partners as the firm's partner and co-head of real estate. In the past decade with Canyon Partners, Stamolis helped oversee $5.5 billion of debt and equity capital across roughly 200 transactions.

"The timeline for going national with a larger co-mingled vehicle is six months out, but we may come out with a single strategy before then," she added. Stamolis declined to share more details with CoStar News, saying the investment strategy is still being developed.

In discussing what Lincoln might focus on, in terms of investment activity, Stamolis said she's not willing to rule out any kind of property type, even office properties.

"We are sensitive to the narrative in the market around office at this point," Stamolis told CoStar News. "I don't think anything stays the same forever and my goal is we'll at least be able to include it at our discretion in the future. It's an important asset class. There are going to be some real opportunities in office in the next few years."

Like all real estate, Stamolis said any potential investment properties would be dependent on the quality of the real estate and its location in a market with "demand drivers in office in certain pockets," that need to be met, regardless of the headlines.

"We would be doing ourselves a disservice if we were afraid of office," she added. "We will be thoughtful and intentional about it. Our funds are deployed over a long period of time, and we don't want to limit ourselves."

The commercial real estate executive with more than 30 years of experience said she's most bullish on grocery-anchored retail centers, with ground-up industrial projects, as well as any type of multifamily property, also grabbing her attention. Housing will remain an important asset class with an ongoing supply-demand imbalance and an ever-present affordability gap impacting large parts of the population, she said.

Challenges remain with the locked-up capital markets, but Stamolis sees the silver lining in which she's building a platform without any legacy assets and an expectation the capital markets will flow once again sometime next year.

With the institutional investor demand for real estate increasing significantly in recent years, Binswanger and Co-CEO Clay Duvall said there's "a substantial focus on the growth of our investment management business," with Stamolis having a long track record of success in launching and managing both debt and equity platforms and portfolios across a broad spectrum of real estate types.

At Canyon Partners, Stamolis helped establish the real estate emerging manager platform, called Canyon Catalyst Fund, in partnership with California Public Employees' Retirement System. The fund invested throughout real estate along the West Coast with early-stage, high-performing emerging managers.

Stamolis also held senior roles at real estate firms Karney Management Co. and R+B Realty Group-Oakwood Worldwide. She began her as a project manager for the developer center for Housing Partnerships in New York City before later serving as a portfolio manager for GE Capital and MBL Life Assurance Corp.

Lincoln has also added three other senior level executives to its investment management team. Vernon Chin has been named as a senior managing director for the firm. Rob Bilse has also taken on a managing director role and Carly Marano has been named as a director at the firm.

Chin and Marano worked extensively with Stamolis at Canyon Partners, a $24 billion global alternative investment manager, which decided to relocate its Los Angeles headquarters to Dallas about two years ago with the region being "a mecca for people looking for a hospitable place to do business," one of the firm's leaders said at an event hosted by The Real Estate Council last year.

Bilse most recently was a director and head of capital markets at Patrizia Property, where he led the North American business and brand strategy.