real estate expertise

De-risk, Design, and Develop your real estate strategy.

Hi, I’m Mary margaret licisyn

Mary Margaret Licisyn is founder and principal of Surface Area Partners, LLC. She brings 15+ years of professional experience in commercial real estate development and city planning. Her sweet spot is a development project where she works on the pre-construction phase. She enjoys: entitlement negotiations, due diligence reports, permit approvals, consultant team management, feasibility analysis, acquisition strategy, community engagement, and financial modeling. She prefers projects that support placemaking and build community.

Her experience includes project management across large (1500+ acres) and small scale (.25 acre) developments with a variety of uses including undeveloped, urban infill, mixed-use, and large master planning projects for private developers, public entities, and non-profit organizations.

Centered in Hendersonville, NC, her portfolio spans the sunbelt from Washington, DC to Florida and as far west as Colorado and Texas. She lives in western North Carolina and focuses on projects in Henderson, Transylvania, Buncombe and surrounding counties.

Mary Margaret graduated from the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School with an MBA concentrating in Real Estate Development. She has her Master of Urban and Regional Planning and undergraduate degrees from the University of Colorado. AICP certified 2009-2022.

Mary Margaret currently serves on the Town of Laurel Park’s Planning Board. She is the managing principal of Surface Area Partners.

 

GEOGRAPHIC FOCUS

Centered in Hendersonville, NC, Surface Area focuses on serving Henderson County, North Carolina, including Mills River, Flat Rock, Laurel Park, Fletcher, and unincorporated areas; plus the surrounding western North Carolina areas of Asheville, Buncombe, Transylvania, and the greater Greenville, SC market.

Drawing upon her national experience, she is open to remote work on consulting projects within the southeast and beyond.

MEET THE “partners”

Surface Area Partners is a one-woman-show with a large supporting cast. She cultivates relationships with aligned professionals to support her projects as needed. Her network consists of trusted consultants, including engineers, architects, artists, marketers, contractors, interior designers, and more.

If you’ve selected your consultant team and still have gaps to fill, Surface Area will make introductions and support the relationship life-cycle, including procurement, scope, budget, and execution.