Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
Issue link: https://sct.epubxp.com/i/390025
go to work for The Home Depot, you put on an apron and work at the store for two weeks," Westmoreland said. "The Home Depot wants you to learn every aspect of the business before you start go- ing out to look for real estate." In his years with the chain, West- moreland handled all aspects of the real estate search. "It was a great learn- ing curve for me, because I developed a skill for every part of the process," he said. "Today, anytime we go on a real estate trip, those disciplines show up, and those experiences come back to me." The knowledge translates par- ticularly well when Westmoreland is dealing with national tenants such as Walmart. "Coming out of the other side of The Home Depot, I understood the retailers' needs so much more," he said. "Typically, brokers and developers are interested in getting a transaction done, because that's when they get paid. But I like to look at things a bit more globally and say: 'What is this going to mean for this retailer for the next 20 years? Will this store be profitable? Is it the best de- cision?' I try to layer in that type of de- cision making when I'm looking at real estate for them." These days, Douglass E. Karp's role as president of New England Devel- opment touches just about every di- mension of the development process, including site acquisition, financing, permitting, design, construction and leasing. Karp was promoted from ex- ecutive vice president last month, a position in which he managed most of the Newton, Mass.–based company's retail and mixed-use development proj- ects and served as asset manager for its Nantucket Island Resorts, a collection of hospitality and retail properties on Nantucket. But though Karp is now an experienced developer, he started in re- tail at the age of 17. He and his friend, Ben Fischman, then 20, told their fa- thers — the found- ers of New England D e v e l o p m e n t — about an unfilled niche. "There was no place to buy hats at the mall," Karp said. He and Fischman started Lids as a specialty- leasing tenant at Atrium Mall, in N e w t o n , w i t h a focus on licensed and branded sports hats. The business famously took off, eventually growing to some 400 mall- based, airport and street-level stores across the country. Growing up, Karp had absorbed ideas and perspectives about retail and development from one of the country's foremost experts: his father, Stephen R. Karp, chairman and CEO of New Eng- land Development. The elder Karp de- veloped some of the first enclosed malls in the Northeast and often talked to his son about the business. This informal education, along with the experience of growing Lids into a major chain, gave the younger Karp a solid foundation. The benefits of diverse experience are such that some companies make a point of filling development positions with for- mer retail executives. Darnall cites Eden's hire, announced in May, of Carol Spann Joyner, SCLS, as vice president for the Southeast. Joyner previously held senior real estate positions at Teavana and Gap Inc. However, even when cross-training, per se, is not an option, companies can broaden their employees' horizons by making sure diverse parts of the organi- zation continually talk with each other. "The way our company is set up, we have a single platform, and then we have three or four different businesses operat- ing on that platform," Champion said. "They all interact with each other. So if a site comes in to the multifamily group, we have a weekly meeting where it is dis- cussed among all the different businesses. The goal is to make sure we are looking at it from every possible angle." SCT 52 S C T / O c t O b e r 2 0 1 4 D o u g l a s s E . p r E s i D E n t o f n E w E n g l a n D D E v E l o p m E n t