Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
Issue link: https://sct.epubxp.com/i/74664
NEWS MAKERS A family affair THREE GENERATIONS OF BAKERS HAVE THEIR EYES ON RETAIL REAL ESTATE By Ben Johnson F RETAIL REAL ESTATE TALENT RUNS in the bloodstream, perhaps living proof is found in the Baker fam- ily, where a promising third generation is set to make a mark. Fam- ily patriarch Robert C. Baker started it all as founder of Purchase, N.Y.–based National Realty & Development Corp., which owns and manages about 70 shopping centers across some 22 million I JACK, RICHARD AND ROBERT C. BAKER, AT RECON 2012 IN LAS VEGAS 52 SCT / AUGUST 2012 square feet, plus corporate business cen- ters and residential communities in 14 states. His son, Richard, meanwhile, is CEO of Hudson's Bay Co., which op- erates department store chain Lord & Taylor in the U.S. and The Bay, Home Outfitters and others in Canada. Rich- ard's 15-year-old son Jack, in turn, is not merely waiting in the wings, but already working on shopping center deals of his own — under grandpa's guiding eye. Indeed, Robert Baker has already proved as gifted a mentor as he is an en- trepreneur. "My earliest memories are of visiting shopping centers and listening to my father and learning the retail busi- ness," said Richard Baker. "That's what we talked about at dinners and all the time. After college we worked together for 17 or 18 years, and we built a won- derful business together. Now I'm hoping my father can imprint everything onto my son Jack, so history continues." Jack's future career does seem predes- tined from an early age, but Richard's route was a bit more circuitous, Rob- ert Baker says. "When he was in high school, Richard always liked to make some money, and he was in the cater- ing business, then he went to cooking school in Europe one summer," he said. "At Cornell hotel school his project was on how to open a chicken-wing restau- rant, and he did a terrific job putting to- gether a full plan to open it and actually had a lease right off the ground, south of the University of Pennsylvania." That venture never materialized, but Robert Baker brought his son into the busi- ness to try things out for the summer — a summer tryout that lasted a good 20 years. "The best decision I ever made