David Sturner | Principal & Senior Managing Director | Banyan Street Capital | ‘Adapt or die’ to keep up with CRE market changes

Transcript

DA: Welcome to TEN, the Tenant Experience Network. I’m your host, David Abrams. In this episode, we are connecting with David Sturner, Principal Senior Managing Director at Banyan Street Capital. In this episode, we learn that David entered the family business and built a successful career in commercial real estate. He attributes some of his success to his father, who served as an early mentor. David shares how the pandemic affected Banyan’s business and created an opportunity to pivot in their business by converting office spaces to residential. David firmly believes in the adage, “Adapt or die,” because he understands that markets will change, and we must continually be thinking about what needs to be done in order to keep up. We discussed the paradigm shift that is taking place in the New York office market, and David’s thoughts on the long-term impact on how buildings are used and how building operators must compete by adopting hospitality service and new technologies to drive future success. We are excited to share this podcast with you, so be sure to subscribe to TEN so you never miss an episode of the Tenant Experience Network. And now, I’d like to welcome David to the show. I’m really glad you could be with us today. How are you?

DS: I’m well. Thank you for having me today.

DA: No problem. So I’m really curious and interested to learn about your journey to your current position and role. Tell me how you got started.

DS: Well, I was born in Red Bank, no I won’t do that. I graduated Boston University with a marketing degree in 1989. You know how useful that was. Probably earned $16,000 a year, which didn’t even pay for my food for the year, but my passion was always in real estate. My father formed this firm in ’71. It was a very small owner-only. We didn’t even operate it at the time. We gave out those services to either Cushman and Wakefield or Williams or even, actually, the last ones were George Comfort and Sons, which was an actual owner operator as well, but they had a brokerage arm, and they had a little bit more of a turnkey, vertically integrated firm. When my father asked me what I wanted to do, and I said I wanted to join his firm, he said, “No, you have to go learn something we don’t know,” and at the time, he was buying a lot of half-empty properties downtown and knew there were going to be large capital requirements, so he said, “Go learn construction,” so I went and worked for a company called Structure Tone. It’s one of the, I think it’s the 20th largest GC in the world, they do over three billion in interiors. They also have a ground-up arm under Pavarini as well as another number of hosts of other companies they own across the country and the world. I believe they’re in England and a few other countries in Western Europe. So I learned that pretty detailed skillset. After seven and a half years, I left and came to join Murray Hill, and I formed the project management or owner’s rep, for the lack of a better word, and the asset management group as well as the brokerage, and we became a vertically integrated firm and rebranded ourselves from Murray Hill Properties, which was the ownership entity, to MHP Real Estate Services. We ran for over 20 years together, my father and I. I became a COO after forming all the firms, and ran the company with him and his partners, Neil Siderow and Michael Green, and they retired, and it ended up just my father and I, and we were probably in our sixth fund-raise. We actually not only did all the turnkey real estate functions, we identified the opportunities we underwrote and executed, but we also raised our own funds. They were predominantly general GP funds, so normally, somewhere between five and 15% of the equity necessary for a deal, and we’d go and seek larger institutional LP to buy larger and larger properties. At one point, we had a portfolio of over eight and a half million square feet. We were the 16th largest manager. As time went on, we were having problems finding sense in the market and understanding pricing and valuation. In the business we were in, which was the added value business, we had to somewhat come in at an undervalued price and come in and add value, and most of our funds were driven by IR performance. So the lack, the space and time, was as important as how much the value escalated from our improvements. So that business started to become more difficult as pricing and valuations of these commercial offices just rose, so we found that we had enough people interested in buying our platform, not necessarily the real estate, but the platform that produced all the fees around our portfolio as well as the team that identified the opportunities and underwrote and executed them. You can imagine companies coming out of other areas that were not New York and a high barrier to entry, buying into our platform, certainly a great way to get there, and my father happened to be one of the icons of real estate for 50 years, so there was a brand, there was a name, and we were quite successful. So we ended up selling the firm, went through a process. We had a few suitors, some with larger prices than who we ended up going with, but we chose Banyan Street Capital for a various amount of reasons, but the biggest reason was Rudy Touzet, the CEO. He’s just very bright, knows the business inside and out, has seen all sides to it, including running Cushman and Wakefield’s southeast office for, I think, over 15 years as well, so he was just the right partner for what we wanted to do going forward, and we all had aligned interests in what we wanted to accomplish in this partnership. So four years later, we have not bought a property, and then the pandemic hits. Ultimately, in hindsight, not buying properties, yes, it shrunk our platform. Obviously, we continued to reduce size ’cause our portfolio size was just getting smaller with every sale and not purchasing any new properties, but looking back, we are so blessed that we did not overpay for the pleasure of these B and C-class properties, which are the ones we were, or B plus. We started to move up in scale, certainly, but we are blessed that we did not pay for owning these properties ’cause clearly, there’s a real difficulty in that market right now, and what my partner did, he came to me in the summer of 2020 and said, “What are we going to do? Clearly, the business we’re in and what we’d come into for New York was commercial office added value.” I said, “You’re right.” I said, “What we’re going to do is we’re going to pivot. We’re going to enter the commercial to resi conversion business.” This was way before some of the New York City initiatives to go into public and affordable housing, a lot of talk, but nothing tangibly had happened. With the new mayor, Eric Adams, this is one of his biggest mantras. Beyond gun control and violence, he needs to produce a tremendous amount of housing, including affordable housing, throughout the boroughs, but specifically in Manhattan. There’s obviously a change in the dynamic of the people that lived in Manhattan and people who could afford it. That has actually created such a wealth gap that all these side street buildings, the retail in them, they are empty. There’s no one to support those type of businesses, and there’s no one to patron them, so I actually have been speaking with some people and creating this task force where we’re actually talking to Eric about forming a group of private individuals, private citizens that are in the real estate business, to identify these properties that can easily be converted from commercial office to affordable housing. So I basically kind of squoze together a period of 28 years very quickly. So maybe if you have any questions about that path, you can start asking.

DA: All right, well, first of all, you’re right. It’s an incredible journey, and certainly interesting. So again, you started out, you had no idea where you would end up and where you would be today, but what do you think, and why do you think you were so uniquely suited to this opportunity? So what has helped you, first of all, to become successful, to identify these opportunities, to know when to pivot? What do you attribute that to?

DS: Well, first and foremost, my father, who instilled into me since I was four years old. We would drive into the city for dinners, and he would drive by these buildings going, “Yeah, bought that. Yeah, we just bought that,” and it excited me, just so it was ingrained, really, in me. I would tell you the construction background. Knowing the field is extremely important in the business we’re in, even more important in the resi conversion business, and I would go further. I actually spoke about six months before the pandemic hit, and because our story is so unique that we changed from an owner operator to a, I should say an owner to an owner operator raising our own funds, then looking for funds on, to apply our magic. The theme of my speech was “Adapt or die” and I truly have always built my theories around the changing market and what do we have to do to keep up with it? Because you just can’t be a one-trick pony. You can’t sit there for 30 years and expect to be successful with one idea and one way of doing business. So again, it’s a combination of three things: my father, the skillset, and maybe an innate ability to realize things are changing. I would say a little bit of luck in that I was right a lot of the times, but ultimately, I do give a lot of credit to my father and what he taught me in the first 10 years of my career in Murray Hill Properties and MHP Real Estate Services.

DA: Well, lucky you, lucky to have such a great mentor and clearly a friend and a father, so I love that story, and I guess although you were in very, I’m a founder of a technology startup, and you’ve been in commercial real estate, there are many commonalities in terms of, knowing how to transition your business, knowing when you might have to take that pivot, raising money, so a lot of common elements for sure.

DS: Absolutely, and certainly a lot of integration now with technology driving all of real estate.

DA: Absolutely, and we’ll talk more about that. So listen, there’s a lot of commentary around the return to workplace and certainly some extreme opinions being expressed. Can be confrontational, can be polarizing. My team and I, we really believe that everyone needs to live and work in the world as it is right now. The commercial real estate industry and its employers, we can’t continue to project to a date in the future. We really believe that if this is the new normal, we have to figure out how to do business today. So I’m just curious what you think that means for the commercial real estate industry, and then we’ll unpack a couple of other questions as well.

DS: Well, as you suggested, there’s a lot of confrontation. Give you a quick story, March hits, now, as our platform shrinks, our brokerage business was driven by our portfolio. Yes, a lot of agency business out of our, doing leases within our own buildings, but when a tenant just didn’t renew or shrunk or had to go somewhere else because of the size constraints, we got that business as tenant rep. So there was a lot of trickle-down business coming from, and residual business, from our base core business and the real estate portfolio we owned. As it continued to shrink, that area of business shrunk for us, and I’ll go further, our guys specialized in two to 10,000 square footers. Those are done predominantly in the B, maybe B plus properties. The larger buildings, they have a lot more full-floor tenancies and large block tenants, and that business indicatively went down because those businesses either were working fully remotely or didn’t know the future of their space needs and when it’s a flex space, which now, that business is being buoyed by this new mantra. So when I would speak, I said, “This is a paradigm shift.” I said, “Commercial office, especially the B and C, is in real trouble.” I said, “I don’t see how remote is going to change. I think you can say the executives or the people that need to be together to collaborate, yeah, they’re going to be in the office, and even more importantly, if they live in the city, it’s easy for them to commute, they’ll go to the office just to get out of the monotony of sitting in their apartments, but a third of the workforce is administrative, and they don’t necessarily have to be in the office, and as a matter of fact, they travel an hour or an hour and a half each way. It’s a miserable existence to try to commute. The cost, the cost of lunch, the cost of your time, I have discussed this with a myriad of people I was letting go, and they felt working from home was not only more productive but more enjoyable, and that’s the shift. The quality of life is more important to that staffer than the money because the money can be saved through no commuting, no lunches, and more importantly, they’re getting all their chores done in between meetings. Their kids, they’re being more attentive. By five, six o’clock, they actually have a life. You’re not going to change the mind of that person, and that’s why we’re seeing either people quitting, or they just are winning the argument that I’m going to work remotely more days than you’d like, senior executive. The talent’s going to drive that decision in the future, in my opinion, and I think ultimately, you’re seeing people drop out of the workforce ’cause they’re making more money entrepreneurially online, ecommerce, just selling things. There is more money certainly to be had and more joy in the fact that they don’t have to have the grueling commutes than working in the office environment. One, that’s not the easiest in the world, and two, being usually undervalued and underpaid and that, to have that privilege. So these were all conversations I had, and people argued with me for a couple speeches, and I stopped speaking ’cause people got upset. A year later, I did a point counterpoint with a guy named Kent Swig. I don’t know if you know Swig Equities.

DA: I don’t.

DS: Brown Harris Stevens. He’s an owner of a lot of real estate and real estate firms, and he was one of the guys who argued with me. We got on the point counterpoint, and he literally got the speaking engagement and said, “I’d love to be able to argue with David today, but I must admit he was right,” and it went silent, and even the arguments, and it’s more affecting the vertical cities like Chicago, San Francisco, and New York, with hundreds of millions of square feet of commercial office, because, yeah, the suburban-style city is going to do fine, most people are getting in their cars to drive to work anyway, they’re not necessarily getting on mass transit, places like Nashville, Austin, Miami, but vertical cities with, New York City’s 500 million square feet, so when one of the comments was, “Okay, maybe we have a contraction of 10 or 15%,” I said, “That’s 70 million square feet.”

DA: Right, it’s massive.

DS: Again, silence. You hear crickets. I didn’t want to be right, but ultimately, this is a paradigm shift. I keep stuttering, but forgive me, I keep thinking of these conversations on the fly. Every one of them first pointed to look at 2001 right after 9/11. Look at 2008, commercial office came back first. Everyone needs an office, and I said, “That’s fine,” because that was a one-day event, and you were recovering the next day. You know, I said, “This pandemic’s still going on.” I said, “And we don’t know how long,” so again, everyone called me a pessimist, and I had never been that person, especially when my father was considered the cockeyed optimist. He was never down in New York, I mean never. He always said we’d be back, and everyone loved to hear it from him, and he’s been right all the time up until this point. My father ended up retiring right after about six months of the pandemic. He just said, “I just have nothing to offer at this point. I can’t go into the office. I don’t feel comfortable at 80 years old,” and he hadn’t lost the verve to be there. He just kind of lost the will at this point, and he’s very happy in his retirement, he couldn’t be happier with the decision he made. But here we are today, now pivoting because commercial office is going to struggle so mightily, and the real commercial office that’s going to survive is the A, everyone’s A-type property, everyone’s going to be, there’s a flight to quality, but even the A-type property, the A-class properties, are competing heavily with all the other class A. So leading into your conversation, what has to change? It’s exactly that, the technology, the touchless environments, the app-driven entrance visitor passing and getting around the asset. All of this technology is going to be the forefront of class A and any commercial office that wants to succeed in the future. I will even go the next step, and that’s driving more hospitality-driven experiences, where we’re talking about bringing concierge services to our building down at 180 Maiden Lane. It’s a 1.2 million-square foot building you know quite well, and if we don’t, and mind you, we’re at 90% occupied with leases that extend beyond 10 years, but we have a very large tenant that is up shortly in the next three years, and we have to be able to retain them and more importantly, attract new tenants that not only love the inherent bones of the building, which it’s a gorgeous classic property, but it needs some work, and to really guide itself into the future of what commercial office and class A properties need to be.

DA: Yeah, listen, there’s a lot of what you just shared that I 100% agree with. I think it is a paradigm shift. I do think that buildings have a place in this new hybrid work world, so there are certain things that yes, they can still be done virtually, but I think in terms of, creating opportunities for collaboration, inspiration, helping to build culture, helping to build and sustain great companies, I do think that coming together, there’s a purpose and a place for that, so can buildings help employers attract and retain the best talent? Is there anything that they can do specifically to help them in this effort? I see it now more as a collaborative effort. It’s not just that buildings provide space, and the employers have to, they’re on their own. What can buildings and employers do together?

DS: I touched upon it earlier. It’s amenities. It’s engagement. It’s experiential, events that are going on in the building. The best buildings today are going to have a lot more outdoor space, much more amenity, spread out, lounge, more relaxing, engaging environments as opposed to the stiff cafeterias and a video room and a meeting and conference center, those things, most A properties have. It’s really how you engage them, and that’s where the hospitality, the concierge, the app, the mobile app system that you provide, it’s all of those things combined together to create an experience that the tenant and their staff want to come to work.

DA: Right, yeah, I agree, and you sort of touched right off, checked into my next question, which is, recognizing that buildings are ultimately places for people, and we’re seeing this rise in the need to offer more specific and elevated tenant experience, and in fact, that’s often becoming the new differentiator. You’ve talked about different class buildings, how do you position a C or a B or a B plus building, up against an A building, and we believe that experience, actually, is that new differentiator. You can be, maybe it’s not the best location. Maybe it’s not an A-class building, but your experience can actually be the draw. Any thoughts on that?

DS: Yeah, I’m not suggesting every B property is going to have to pivot to resi or hotel or something completely different, but they will have to go above and beyond what their local class A property that’s probably on the corner of their side street, and they really going to have to work hard. They’re going to have to put real dollars, real capital into their properties, and it’s just not as easy in the class B side street building.

DA: Right. Okay, let’s take a short break, and we will be right back.

Commercial Break

DA: We’re back with David Sturner, Principal Senior Managing Director at Banyan Street Capital. Again, glad you could be with us today. Living through a pandemic has been really challenging for so many, and you shared some of your journey through this process, but I believe it’s also provided an opportunity for us to do better, be better, and ultimately build something better. Now, you’ve already alluded to sort of a pivot that you are taking professionally, but I’d love for you to share any more details that you can about your business or some part of your business, perhaps more about this conversion of office to resi, something that you are reimagining as a result of the reality we’re living through today.

DS: Well, the pandemic has not just touched commercial office, certainly more impactful, but it’s touched all forms of real estate, and especially where you live, since, as we just described, a third of the workforce might be working indefinitely at their homes, so again, it comes to the luxury lifestyle experiential feel that your buildings can provide. It works the same for residential. We’re doing the same type of things. We’re thinking about the same ideas. What will attract a tenant? What will keep them there, more importantly? And moving with those times. So what I would tell you is I’m hopeful that the pandemic is on its tail end and that this variant and the next three variants are going to be maybe more transmissible but less deadly and healthwise not as affected, so I think this is the verge to what we call, I guess they call herd immunity and maybe will help all the unvaccinated to get us to a point where we can go maskless, I think, maybe by this summer, maybe not in the subway systems or in an elevator, but out in the street. There’s just, in my opinion, too many people wearing masks, and I understand it’s their choice, no problem. I’m not a person who judges and thinks that they should be taking it off, but I can’t wear a mask outside. It has to change, and that’s the only time we’re going to start to move toward what the new normal looks like, because a new normal can’t involve a mask, it just can’t. So again, the pivot isn’t such a big change. It’s still the bones of the building that’s going to drive our desire to renovate it and having the ability to renovate in the new norm. More outdoor space, more collaborative areas, and even in the residential building, it’s lounges, things that will get the clients and the tenants together is important to most people. When they come home, they don’t want to necessarily have to go out every time to either socialize or eat. To find it within your own home, or the ability to bring that element to your home, is instrumental in making sure that your property competes with the local competitors.

DA: We’re seeing or hearing the notion of, home is becoming more office-like, and office is becoming more homelike.

DS: It’s melding. It’s exactly correct. It’s what I’m touching on. There isn’t much difference.

DA: So even on the residential side, do you need not so much a party room, but you need meeting rooms, you need phone booths for people to go down and take private phone calls, you need a small recording studio where people can go and do Zoom recordings or Zoom interviews? And I think that’s really exciting.

DS: Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. I have actually no response other than that, can’t elaborate. They need all those things, and it’s what people want today.

DA: So do you even imagine that the conversion from office to residential, that even within that stack, that it could be 50% still office or 20% still office, and 70 or 80 or 50% residential? Am I getting closer?

DS: Well, driving that is zoning, and so a lot of the buildings we’re looking at have FAR, which is the element that tells you what you can build zoning-wise, are partially resi and part commercial. That’s not necessarily by design. I think what you’re driving at is something, we were called We Live. Do you remember that?

DA: Sure.

DS: It didn’t succeed. I’m not sure exactly why ’cause I actually thought it was a good idea. It’d certainly attract millennials and the younger folk that felt like this was the future, and maybe they were just ahead of their time because I do believe that is a viable business, and I think it will succeed in the future. So yeah, the real estate in Manhattan, certainly the B class property that has this dual zoning in FAR, will fall under the category of having no choice if they can’t get a variance for full resi or decide to go full commercial. Usually, there inherently, you can do the whole building commercial, but there’s a portion of it, usually around 2/3, that you can go residential. Not all buildings have that zoning, mind you. A lot of them are pure commercial, and that’s the heavy lift that the city’s going to have to deal with, and I point over there ’cause I live on the side of the water. Yeah, the city’s going to have to pivot itself, and it’s going to have to drop some of the mandates that the community boards have and the zoning resolutions have. So until that happens, and more importantly, and still subsidies, ’cause the affordable housing aspect’s not going to happen to any landlord unless he’s incentivized or she’s incentivized because ultimately, luxury rental is what’s going to drive the highest and best use and the best return, so to get a landlord to pivot to partial or even half affordable housing, there’s going to have to be substantial subsidies and tax abatements that are not only large in value but long-term and more importantly, most importantly, transferable. A lot of times when the building is sold, you lose those aspects. It can’t be. It just has to be removed, and they have to be able to be more fungible, for the lack of a better word, again, to take that property and use it and bring the most value to it, and having that ability to bring the most value to that asset.

DA: All right, David, some great insights. Our closing speed round, and an opportunity to get to know you, David, a little bit better. Can you share one way in which the pandemic has changed your outlook on life?

DS: I haven’t changed my life, but I changed the way I work. I’m still probably putting in 80-hour work weeks. I have always put in a large amount of hours, whether I was in the office or not. I am never not available to my partners or my tenants. I mean, it doesn’t bother me to have to respond to something even at eight or nine at night. It’s almost an addiction to my inner person. I’m a person that wants to respond, I want to help, but more importantly, I don’t want my workload to pile up, so I like to get it off the desk really quickly,

DA: You get it done.

DS: But my life hasn’t changed other than I’m watching my children, who graduated college, and my wife’s children grow up and establish their own careers, and I’m certainly putting more focus on them, but it hasn’t changed my life in the fact that I’ve always felt that way, and even when they were children and I was divorced young, but I was always out there. I mean, thank God my ex and I had a great relationship, and she didn’t mind me being, even in the weekends I wasn’t, it wasn’t my weekend, she encouraged me to be more active and be involved, and I was, and it’s an impact that I can see with my children, that they weren’t at all affected negatively by our divorce, and matter of fact, they’re both thriving, really happy with their lives.

DA: That’s a wonderful story. Thank you for sharing that. What travel destination do you miss most?

DS: Europe. I haven’t been overseas in two years, and my wife and I love to go to Europe, and we’re doing planning trips more on the spot based on these variants. Obviously, we don’t want to have trouble getting home, the requirements of testing now are just really, stretch the imagination, and God knows you could get stuck in a foreign country without any home, without a place to stay, so it’s a little bit more frightening to travel abroad, so we’re keeping most of our trips domestic, although we have gone to, just recently, we went to Costa Rica, but we did it as a family. We did not go to the restaurants. All 10 of us stayed in one house, we brought in a chef, and we really did it right and made sure we didn’t interact too much with anyone else other than outdoors at the beach areas, but I can tell you this, we got on our flight, and about 20 or 30 people had to stay. They got COVID in Costa Rica, and if they didn’t have a house like we had, and they were in hotels, and the hotels were booked, they were staying in government facilities. I have heard some nightmares about them living in these facilities, and they’re not being treated badly. The government’s doing the best they can, but you can only imagine it’s not the level and the lifestyle that they’ve grown accustomed to. 

DA: Not the way you want to end a vacation either. 

DS: Exactly. 

DA: Anything new on your bucket list that you’d like to experience?

DS: No, no, I just want to live my life even-keeled, continue on my path, it seems to have steered me right so far.

DA: All right. Favorite technology that is new to your life?

DS: I‘m not a techie, but I am, meaning when the new iPhones come out, I usually want one. I do hold myself back ’cause I know how the next technology’s coming out six months later, and I hate to be a fool and not get the best that they have. What technology? Other than Zoom, which is not necessarily new but certainly being more prominent these days, video chatting like this and mastering what I can look and sound like on these videos.

DA: Don’t worry, we can do a lot. You can tell us.

DS: My perfect view, maybe? I don’t know, my angle? 

DA: You can tell us later. We can do a nip, a tuck. We can do anything you want. 

DS: I don’t really care, necessarily.

DA: All right, all right. What is your personal choice for days spent in person with your college versus working from anywhere?

DS: I like a mix. Again, variety is the spice of life. I do believe five days a week is probably gone forever for everyone, and I think it’s a lifestyle change that everyone appreciates, even the executive that wants everyone in. I think they’ve learned that they may enjoy kind of stepping out unless their home life isn’t good, and I get that too. I like a good mix, but again, I never put work down. I’m open to working at any moment when it’s necessary, and I actually really enjoy it. 

DA: Right, and I think that’s what a lot of people had maybe not had that opportunity to experience, i.e. working from anywhere, and found that they’ve been able to. I think that’s what they’ve learned through this entire process, so I do think you’re right. Even the executive, I think we’re all going to find new ways of working, and I think personally, the office, the workplace is still important, but I think that we have a wonderful opportunity to redefine what all of this looks like, and like you, I think the experience that buildings offer is going to be a huge driver of making the building as compelling as working from home in your pajamas, perhaps.

DS: Well, on that note, really think about Europe and most countries: Latin America, some of the Asian countries, and America, no one even thought to put 80-hour weeks in. That was not even a thought in their heads, they just don’t work like that. They like a mix of, the quality of life was always important to people outside of America and China and Japan, and the pandemic actually, I think, shifted some of those thoughts, certainly, in America, and I think people are realizing they’d rather have a quality of life and give up even some money if it’s necessary to accomplish that task. So, listen, this is still forming. We’re only two years out into this, out of this pandemic. 

DA: Yes. 

DS: We’ll see which way we go, but I do believe talent will drive the decision, not necessarily the principal or the executive making the decision.

DA: I agree, it’s all about the everyday person that works and lives in buildings. Thank you so much for this conversation, David. I look forward to staying in touch, look forward to hearing more about your journey, more about how your business is evolving, and I hope that we can reconnect and continue the conversation. 

DS: It’s my pleasure. Thanks for the time, and it’s been my pleasure.

DA: Great. Take care now, bye.

DS: Thank you. 

DA: I want to thank David Sturner for joining me on this episode of TEN and for contributing to the global conversation around buildings being part of a robust ecosystem that can help to build great companies, and that they are vital in the effort to cultivate and support great people and teams. The future of the workplace will likely take many forms, and we will continue to explore what that looks like together. Subscribe to TEN for more conversations with leading CRE industry professionals and experts, who all have something to say about tenants’ experience and future of the workplace. We love hearing from you, so if you enjoyed this episode of TEN, please share, add your rating, and review us through your preferred podcast provider. If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on a future episode, please reach out to me directly at david@hiloapp.com, and until our next episode, I wish you all continued success in building community where you work and live. Thank you.

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Hard to believe that it’s been over 3 years since we launched the Tenant Experience Network (TEN) podcast as a way to connect with people at a time when we all felt isolated. Host and HILO Co-founder and CEO, David Abrams, has had the opportunity to interview some amazing people from leading CRE and Proptech companies, and in real-time, share what’s really happening in buildings and communities across North America. David wanted the program to provide a true pulse on what was actually going on in the industry, across all asset classes, without being sensational or polarizing, as is often found in the media.

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Season 4 / Episode 15 / 28:35
In this episode, Peter says he seeing an increase in people coming back to the workplace and occupiers using the office to competitively attract talent. He has also noticed a significant push to the best office buildings, regardless of their location. With 460 million square feet of office space in NYC, only time will tell how much space use will have to change.

Celebrating 60 Conversations on TEN

Hard to believe that it’s been over 3 years since we launched the Tenant Experience Network (TEN) podcast as a way to connect with people at a time when we all felt isolated. Host and HILO Co-founder and CEO, David Abrams, has had the opportunity to interview some amazing people from leading CRE and Proptech companies, and in real-time, share what’s really happening in buildings and communities across North America. David wanted the program to provide a true pulse on what was actually going on in the industry, across all asset classes, without being sensational or polarizing, as is often found in the media.

Peter Riguardi | Chairman & President, New York Region | JLL | Lessons in selling CRE in NYC

Season 4 / Episode 15 / 28:35
In this episode, Peter says he seeing an increase in people coming back to the workplace and occupiers using the office to competitively attract talent. He has also noticed a significant push to the best office buildings, regardless of their location. With 460 million square feet of office space in NYC, only time will tell how much space use will have to change.