Richard Perlmutter.

Richard Perlmutter

Richard Perlmutter (BA '76) is founding principal of Argo Development Company. Located in Rockville, Md., Argo is a full service real estate enterprise that provides acquisition, development and finance expertise for both commercial and multi-family projects. 

Since 1996, the company has completed over two million square feet of development and acquisition projects throughout the Washington, Boston and New York metropolitan areas. Among Argo’s most noted works is “Downtown Silver Spring,” a mixed-use development in Silver Spring, Md. The 440,000-square-foot shopping, dining and entertainment destination is widely credited with revitalizing the city’s deteriorated urban core. Garnering national attention, Downtown Silver Spring was the subject of a PBS documentary, chronicled in both the New York Times and Washington Post, and awarded a Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence in 2005.

Prior to founding Argo, Perlmutter was a senior vice president of South Charles Realty and South Charles Investment, both subsidiaries of Bank of America. There he was responsible for more than 500 real estate transactions totaling more than $1.5 billion, including several master-planned communities and extensive office projects throughout the mid-Atlantic and Southeastern United States. His expertise ranges from financial engineering to multi-phase project management. His practice as an attorney includes service for the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee and as a real estate developer for several small and large real estate companies.

Perlmutter holds several leadership positions within the profession and community. He is a trustee of the Urban Land Institute, governor of the Urban Land Institute Foundation, member of the Governance and Management Committees of the Urban Land Institute-Washington District Council, and former board member of the Robert H. Smith School of Business of the University of Maryland and Montgomery Housing Partnership.  He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar.

He is a 1976 graduate of UB’s then-named School of Architecture and Environmental Design, earning a BA in Environmental Design. He also holds a JD from the School of Law at the University of Oregon.