Susan Kurland, director of retail brokerage, tells GlobeSt.com, "The appointment of Jim Wassel represents C&W's support and its desire to strengthen the retail operations. It's a move to bolster the company's infrastructure so we can go forward."
Kurland notes that while there are regional offices across the US handling retail, she says "we lacked professionals in some major markets" and so deals were frequently handled through or in concert with the headquarters here. She says often she and the other home office professionals flew off to the other markets to handle deals. The move to appoint Wassel and commitment to building the retail side, she says will bring in more staff in the regional offices. "We'll be better able to use local intelligence," she adds.
"From a brokerage standpoint," Kurland notes, "I'll still be doing what I always did, but now we're part of a national rollout process. Our purchase of Healey & Baker in Europe and the acquisition of Retail Development partners, led by Gene Spiegelman, back in October were initial steps to rolling out here and globally."
Wassel notes that C&W's reorganization last year and the appointment of Bruce Mosler as the president of US Operations opened the door for a fresh look at retail. While he says he wouldn't term the changes to Retail Services as restructuring, he says Mosler's desire to "expand and diversify" will mean a new approach.
"We control a number of buildings here in terms of managing their leasing, but we don't handle their retail leasing," he says. "We utilize our relationships around the city. We will be importing tenants and setting up relationships with the building owners.
"Through corporate services," he adds, "we're beginning to market ourselves. We want to take over portfolios. Our plans make a statement about the changing retail fabric in the city. We plan to show we can make retail value-added, not an afterthought, for these buildings."
Wassel says, responding to questions about difficulties office projects are now facing in trying to sign retail tenants, "New York is pretty strong even in weak times. We have not had a bad retail environment since the Great Depression. It might plateau, but it's not going to shut down.
Wassel says that in the company's eight regional offices there are already office managers in place, so recruiting will focus on bringing in brokers. Also, he says with regard to his comments about recruiting small to medium-sized companies, "These will be brought in to snap into our national platform."
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free ALM Digital Reader.
Once you are an ALM Digital Member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking commercial real estate news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical coverage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
*May exclude premium content© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
