Today's guest is Jessica Abramson, Senior Development Manager at Stiles Corporation. Jessica is an owner representative on retail real estate development projects. In this episode, Jessica and I discuss her career and why she loves working in development. She offers insight on 5 skills she thinks are critical for success as a commercial real estate developer. She also offers a ton of advice if you are new to the business.
Welcome back to the She’s Wild Podcast. Today's guest is Jessica Abramson, Senior Development Manager at Stiles Corporation. Jessica is an owner representative on retail real estate development projects. She focuses on project planning and coordination, due diligence, obtaining government approvals, budgeting, and scheduling. She’s worked with numerous clients including Publix, The Fresh Market, Trader Joe’s, Ross, Five Below, Planet Fitness, Rooms to Go, Chase Bank, SunTrust Bank, Chipotle, and Starbucks.
Jessica is active in the Urban Land Institute’s Southeast Florida Region serving on the Florida Retail Project Council, is a graduate of Leadership Broward Class XXXIV, and is active on the Advisory Board for the NSU MSRED program and Alumni Association.
In this episode, Jessica and I discuss her career and why she loves working in development. She offers insight on 5 skills she thinks are critical for success as a commercial real estate developer. She also offers a ton of advice if you are new to the business.
Memorable Moments:
19:11 Skills to be successful in development include technical skills such as analyzing financials. But it's also negotiating and influencing others. If you're working with a team and you need to influence them to work on your project to get things done. You might work with an architect who has 10 projects, you need to know how to make that person feel like yours is the most important. And then the other skill is to strategically think about problem solving. You're either trying to prevent a problem or you're trying to solve a problem.
19:52. Thinking outside of the box and understanding what to do to make everybody satisfied or to get this done or to get past this hurdle and then getting your team on board to come up with a solution or to agree with what you think the solution might be. Our job is just to, to keep the project moving. And we might have, a large team and that might also include government officials who don't always have the same priorities that you have.
30:56 If you are a young person getting into the business, milk the student card, as much as you can, even if just say, hey, I'm new to the business call people you want to talk to almost anybody will talk to you for a little while, or have a phone conversation or talk to you at a networking event. Because once you get you know, many years into the business, it's a lot harder to to use that card.
31:18 Young professionals should attend every networking event possible. Introduce yourself, make connections. And then as you're doing that, learn about different career paths. Talk to as many people as you can as possible early on in your career.
Connect with Nancy:
Instagram: https://instagram.com/nancysurak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancysurak/
Website: www.nancysurak.com
Connect with Jessica:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-abramson-68003a19/
Twitter: @Jejoly619
Jessica's Book Recommendation:
Risk Game by Francis J. Greenburger via Amazon: https://a.co/d/7zXDxKU
The Liar$ Ball by by Vicky Ward via Amazon: https://a.co/d/dOiCZTp
Jessica's Podcast Recommendation: The Fort Podcast with Chris Powers http://thefortpod.com/ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fort-with-chris-powers/id1410549811
Nancy's Twitter Recommendation: StripMallGuy @realEstateTrent
She’s Wild Sound Production by:
Luke Surak, Surak Productions: surakproductions@gmail.com
Nancy Surak00:00
Welcome to She's Wild, the podcast for women and land in development. I'm your host, Nancy Surak. I created this podcast as a way to collect conversations of women in the land and development industry. I've been a land broker on the west coast of Florida for nearly 20 years. And I love to empower other women and to tell them about this amazing industry. But I find often that there just aren't enough women being featured on big stages, whether that's at local conferences, or nationally. So I set out to find these women myself that are killing it in my business across North America that are changing the communities that they live in every single day, whether they're building condos, multifamily, single family, office, or industrial projects. I hope that you will find this space to be inspirational, motivating, and educational. From time to time, I will feature women who are not only in my business, but also career coaches, and motivational speakers. Hello, welcome back to She's Wild, the podcast for women in land and development. Today's guest is Jessica Abramson, the senior development manager at Styles Corporation. Jessica, I'm so excited to have you here today because I have yet to have a woman who specializes in ground up retail development. So welcome to the show. What I'd love to do that I'd love to do is just have you go ahead and give us an introduction and tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you're doing and a little bit more about your career.
Jessica Abramson 01:36
Great. Thank you. My name is Jessica Abramson. I live in Fort Lauderdale. I work at Styles Corporation. I've been there for about 11 years now. And we are a fully integrated real estate company. We've been around for about 70 years. Family owned company, the third generation is leading the company now. And when I say we're fully integrated, we have a several different departments that support the development department we have in house architects, they also do a lot of third party work. They design all of our retail projects. They also design a lot of furniture stores and car dealerships for other ownership groups. We have an in house contractor who they build a lot of our retail projects. And again, they also do a lot of third party work for other developers. We also have an in house leasing team that leases up all of our retail projects. I work closely with our brokers. And once a project is done, we have an in house property management group who also there they're very large, they do a lot of other, they have a lot of third party clients. They manage a lot of properties here in South Florida. And then we also have an asset management team. And they also function as our financial services team. So for our ground up projects, they line up all of our capital, they have relationships with our lenders, and they also handle the sales processes for when we are purchasing a property and for when we dispose of our completed properties.
Nancy Surak03:18
Awesome. That's a great overview. So I think when I first reached out to you, I told you I had done a deal with Stiles. So I did a land deal. Oh, great, Zach, prior to the last recession, I think it was in 2007. And it was a really, really great company to work with. Like I really enjoyed the folks that I did that deal with they were incredibly responsive and quick movers, you know, and so it I was relatively early in my career, because I think it was like in two years, but they were just awesome to work with really good people. So thank you, I I alluded to the fact that I haven't had a woman on the show that does retail, I'd love to know, how exactly did you get into the role at Stiles?
Jessica Abramson 04:03
Um, well, if I go way back, I can I think we do have this connection. I went to college at the University of New Orleans. I lived in New Orleans for a while. I left after Hurricane Katrina, and I moved to South Florida. And I at the time, I also really wanted to further my education. I didn't want to when I left New Orleans, I was selling condos. So when I came to Florida, I didn't know the market. I didn't know the area so that wasn't necessarily what I wanted to do. I worked in hotels for some time and I found a really great mentor there who took me under her wing. She knew that I was interested in real estate. She worked at condo hotels together so she created a position for me to manage the condo rental program and manage various renovation projects in the two hotels that I worked at with her or I managed, you know, full room renovations for 400 units, restaurant renovations, lobby renovations and I did that while I was in graduate school at Nova Southeastern University. I went there for my Masters in Science and real estate development. And then after I graduated in 2011, I started working at Stiles, right after that, and I've been here for almost 11 years.
Nancy Surak05:28
So you said, Let's go way back. And you alluded to the fact that we do have a connection, because I'm from New Orleans. Now, I never attended the University of New Orleans, or as the locals call it. UNO. Yes. Or as I called it, and no offense to you, because I don't think you're from there. U NO, no, like, I wasn't going to stay and go to school, you know, but I know it's a great university and has some great programs just but for somebody like me, I was like, I gotta get out of here. I didn't want to stay. So I'd love to know what took you to New Orleans originally?
Jessica Abramson 05:59
Well, I was born there. But I grew up in upstate New York, my, both sides of my family have ties to New Orleans. One side is from there for generations. And my connection to you know, was really, because my grandfather, one of my grandfather's who passed away before I was born. But he was a chemistry professor there and Dean of the Graduate School. And my grandmother was a secretary in the political science department for over 20 years. So I grew up knowing a lot about the school. And I also grew up Visiting New Orleans, every single year. And it really was I just wanted to move down there. And that was a easy connection that I had to get into the city. And so that's why I chose to go there.
Nancy Surak06:52
That's awesome. And for folks who have never lived in New Orleans, I can tell you, it's the most unique place I've ever lived. I grew up there. And like you, my kids go back, you know, we go back every year. And they both love it. They both are like I want to live there. And I'm like, I don't want to live there. But I understand because it's a really unique culture. Food is great. The music's fantastic. It's a very celebratory type environment. And it's just a really wonderful place, I think, to not only visit and vacation, but also if you have a chance to live there. Outside of some safety issues. It's it's a really, really wonderful culture of people who really do celebrate, like every part of life. So you attended, you know, you sold some condos in New Orleans and then Katrina hits. Tell me what was that like? I know what it was like because I had family like I didn't live through it directly. But I family that relocated and stayed with me for a period of time. What was that like for a young woman to go through that?
Jessica Abramson 07:52
It was definitely a unique experience and not anything that I ever expected. After I graduated college, I stayed there. And like I mentioned, I was working for a real estate agency just selling condos for developers. I had a very specific goal that I had been working towards for many years, which was that I wanted to buy my first house before I turned 25 years old. I spent a lot of time working on my credit score saving money for a downpayment. Looking at properties, I found one I fell in love with it. I bought it on June 10 2005. I spent the whole summer fixing it up and then it was completely obliterated on in August 2005. It was a very unique experience in the sense that I basically only everything that I was left with I could have fit into a Tupperware box or Rubbermaid box. And my grandparents who lived over on the coast of Mississippi, their their house was fine. And so I moved in with them. My aunt and uncle moved in with them, their friends moved in with them. And really since I was so influenced by and around my grandparents all the time, they would always say, Jessica, you'll be fine. You're 25 years old, you have your whole life ahead of you What about you know, so and so who lost all of our pictures for the last 70 years or you know, our eight year old friend who lost everything that she owns, there really wasn't an opportunity to feel sorry for myself about that. But it was something that it was very impactful to me because I you know, I had to get my entire house demolished. I had to deal with the you know, insurance companies. I basically didn't have a job because then nobody was nobody really knew what to kind of do at the time at at with real estate everything was kind of ruined. So Oh, it was very, definitely a unique experience that I dealt with for years and years afterwards, because I also missed the city. You know, everybody was kind of mourning a loss of this great place. And but yeah, so I ultimately, I never really thought I was going to live there forever. And I said, Well, you know, if you're going to move, now's really the opportunity. You're out of work, you know, everything you own is in a box. So you might as well, you know, try someplace else. And if you don't like it, you can always go back. And so I moved to South Florida, and I've been here for almost 17 years. But I love New Orleans. I miss it a lot. I go back, every chance I get I was married there. I was just there about a month ago, visiting friends and family. I still have family there.
Nancy Surak10:48
Yes. So do I. It's really interesting to hear that, you know, 20 How old were you? 24 25? 25 Yeah, so your whole life just basically crumbles around you everything you'd been planning for? Yes. What was the biggest lesson that you learned through that?
Jessica Abramson 11:04
Well, I think one of the biggest lessons was, you know, I didn't really feel this way beforehand. But the biggest lesson was that material items really don't mean anything. You know, you can lose them all. And you can, you can certainly get everything back, which I did. I think that that was the biggest thing. And then also just resilience and helping everybody everybody chipped in, they helped each other. You know, I remember clearing out, you know, things that my grandparents friend's house, I mean, my aunt and uncle who their home literally floated down the street, they had a group of Amish people that came from Pennsylvania and help them rebuild our house. And it was just a real sense of camaraderie and working together and helping other people out in their time of need.
Nancy Surak11:48
Yeah, so you so you leave New Orleans after that devastation. And you move to Southeast Florida, which is known for getting hit with hurricanes. I know. Did you have have any pause with that?
Jessica Abramson 12:01
No, not nest. No, not really. You know, I thought I knew that what happened in New Orleans was really, you know, a very unique situation, it's not likely that to happen, again. And I do feel like hurricanes, they come far enough in advance that you can prepare and leave for them, which I had evacuated for Katrina as well. And I really, I love the North East, but I didn't want to live in the cold. So I, you know, I came down here, and I've been here ever since.
Nancy Surak12:35
Okay. That's interesting, because I'm like, that would have probably scared me, but I get it, you know, you're like, Yeah, well, it's probably not gonna happen again. You know, just lightning strike twice, probably not sometimes. So I noticed when I was reviewing for the show, kind of your background, one thing stuck out aside styles, and your work there. And I just want to talk to you about this briefly. Because I haven't had anybody on the show that's actually worked with this organization, either. Um, I'd love to know, just kind of what this was like. But you spent some time working with Trump International Beach Resorts. And I think that was one of the projects. You said, you went in, and you renovate it.
Jessica Abramson 13:12
Right? Yes.
Nancy Surak13:13
Tell me what was that like working for an organization like that, especially being out of New York was, you know, was there any involvement with like the New York base, or was it mostly like local in in southeast Florida?
Jessica Abramson 13:24
Well, the hotel itself is owned by a family that's based here in South Florida, and the Trump name was licensed. So you pay a certain fee to have the name there. And they did have certain branding standards. So while I day to day really didn't have too much involvement with that organization, other than two things when I managed the rental program, so I was responsible for doing all of the accounting for the unit owners, you know, the unit owners, each room was owned individually by separate person, and they could join our rental program, and I administered the rental program. So each quarter, we would tally how often their room was rented, and then take out certain fees. And there was, you know, a licensing fee that went to the Trump Organization that each unit owner paid. So I would, you know, do a part of that accounting tip allocate, like how much would go to them. But the other aspect that I was involved with where they were involved is that we did a full renovation for 412 rooms there start to finish like we almost pretty much almost like gutted the rooms, you know, did everything brand new, and the local hotel owners had hired a interior designer to design the package and we had to get that approved by the brand to make sure that it was on brand. But other than that, you know, I didn't see any day to day involvement with that at all. Got it. Okay, so how much do you see those sorts of elements in your current role like the branding, those sorts of things? Is that a thing for you guys at Stiles? Well, it definite Lee is a big thing for our residential group. We have I work in the retail group. And we also have a residential group. And they handle ground up development for apartment complexes, you know, multifamily rentals. And when they are developing their properties, they go through an extensive branding process, they might hire an outside branding firm. And we also have a great marketing team here who gets involved with with branding their properties. Also, our current headquarters, where we're located is a new office building that we built. And it's branded as the main it's a large mixed use property. However, the retail projects don't have as much branding involved other than we do name the shopping centers. But typically, you know, I've worked a lot with say, you know, like Publix, Starbucks, Chipotle, those big national brands, and really, other than the decor of the facade, they're really dictating, you know, the layout and what everything looks like in the signage. And really, there's a lot of ordination involved with that, like, we might put together a sign package, but will allow them to have their, you know, national branded sign sign package. So with retail, I would say not as much as with other asset classes, you're more coordinating with their branding, correct? Their their layout, you know, what, what are their needs, I mean, obviously, you know, if you go into a Starbucks, or Chipotle, they all kind of look very similar. So you're really kind of working with them to make sure that what you're building needs their prototype.
Nancy Surak16:33
Okay. So when you think through your daily or weekly or monthly activities from a retail developer standpoint, take us through like kind of some of the things that you do on a regular basis, like what if you have a project that you're working on, what are the things that you're concentrating on and where you spend your time?
Jessica Abramson 16:52
Well, it kind of runs the gamut, because it my role we manage projects from as soon as we're getting the land under contract all the way until the project is completed. So you know, for example, I have two pretty large projects, and each one of them I've been working on for over, they're both at the end, but I worked on each one of them for over five years. So depending on the stage of the project, but some of the regular things that we're always doing is, you know, we might perform our due diligence budget, put together a budget and overall budget, a schedule, do all the due diligence activities, then while we still have something under contract, we might be working on all of the entitlements. So depending on what that is, it could be easy. That could be it could be very long, you know, getting site plan approval, getting everything in for permits, handling the design, working with the architect, then negotiating the leases, and then managing the construction process.
Nancy Surak17:49
And then once it once it's built, are you do you still remain involved? Or does that transfer to like an asset management side of the business,
Jessica Abramson 17:57
it does transfer to an asset manager and a property manager, but I still stay involved for certain aspects. Even if the property is operating, and we're negotiating a lease, I might look at the work letter, the delivery conditions, you know, I still will, depending on the tenant and the time of their build out, I'll either manage it if it's during the upfront construction process, or we have a TI manager who we will transfer it over to after.
Nancy Surak18:25
Okay, so when you think about all those different steps, right, because I'm on the very, very front end, as a land broker. Once Once the deal closes from a land perspective, I'm out, you know, I'm gone. But I will tend to pay attention to what's happening, especially if it's something that I pass or that I'm close nearby, I love to see the progress of a deal that I land on. When you think through all those parts when and then you think about kind of the fact that you've been there for 11 years, and you've reached this level of success in your career. What would you say are the top skill sets that somebody needs if they were going to either shift into the development roles or start right out of school? Like what do you think they need to be able to do? What are those skill sets?
Jessica Abramson 19:07
You know, I think that, you know, a lot of people would say, you know, talk about like technical skills such as, you know, being able to analyze the financials. But I really think it's, it's two things, it's really negotiating and influencing others, you're working with a team and you need to influence them to work on your project to get things done. You know, you might work with an architect who has 10 projects, and how do you make that person feel like yours is the most important or to really cooperate with you on deadline. So it's definitely working with a large team and trying to influence them. And then the other one is really trying to strategically think about problem solving. You're either trying to prevent a problem or you're trying to solve a problem. So really thinking outside of the box and trying to understand like, what can we do to make everybody satisfied or to get this done or to get past this hurdle and then Try to get your team on board to, you know, to come up with a solution or to agree with what you think the solution might be. Because really, our job is just to, to keep the project moving. And we might have, we'll have a large team and whether that might be government officials who you know, don't have the same priorities that you have. Or like I said, consultants, we're managing a huge workload, or, you know, tenants who want a certain thing, and you want a certain thing, and that's really what you got to try to do is to get everybody to keep everything moving.
Nancy Surak20:33
So when I heard there was, you have to be really good at relationship building, and follow up. Yes. Like those two things. And I would say the same thing in my role, you know, to keep a deal going and making sure that people are making progress. Those are the two skill sets that I use all day, everyday, you know, just making sure that people are doing what they're supposed to be doing, and that there aren't any problems like lurking in the shadows. And if there are like figuring out the solution, the right solution as fast as possible. Yeah, so it doesn't get worse. So I appreciate that you, you share that when you think back of all the projects all the way back, that you've ever been involved with, what's been your favorite.
Jessica Abramson 21:12
Um, you know, it's funny, because in preparation for talking today, I listened to some of your other episodes, and I forget who it was. But one of them said, is always the first one and the last one. And I kind of agree with that, you know, one of my first ones was, you know, with Publix anchored shopping center in Hollywood, but it was the first one I ever did. And it had a myriad of different issues. And, you know, I was working around the clock trying to learn everything about development. And it really was a lot of fun. We had, we had a fun team. And so I think that was one of my favorites. And then one that I recently just finished up, which I loved. And it was very unique. We in Palm Beach County, we purchased about 39 acres from a woman who had own she and 72 acres, we purchased 38 of them from her and she the property was in this very, very tiny municipality that had, I think, a population of 500, they never had any development. They've never had anything other than, you know, they have one gated community and two commercial properties. And that's it. And so it was really, really fun and really interesting, working with both the seller and the witch, in a place called the village of golf, the village to get the project developed, I had a slew of entitlements because it was zoned agricultural. So we change the land use the zoning site plan, the village had no code for new commercial construction. So we wrote the code, you know, wrote the sign code, everything the entitlements took about, oh, I want to say a year and a half. Then of course, it started construction, right during COVID, which, you know, was interesting as well. And then, you know, the property was unique, because the the woman that we sought it from she is she was getting older and age and her father had developed all of the land around. And she'd own this land since the 60s. And she basically had said, you know, I want to see it developed, you know, while I'm still here, well, I can still be involved. So I know and trust that it's going to be, you know, a great project. And so we worked very closely with her as well. And it ended up being a really beautiful project at the end.
Nancy Surak23:31
It's awesome, I would love to see pictures of that. Because those are, to me, those are the best projects, right? Where you really can get your hands in, like, hear us talking about the town had no code, oh, my, that is such a blessing but so tricky, too, because you have to make sure that you're writing balanced code in making sure that you're doing all the right things so that you don't ruin it for yourself going forward or anyone else, right that might be following you. And that goes both ways. So you have to take into consideration what's in the public's best interest. And then what's in a potential developer's best interest.
Jessica Abramson 24:09
And we worked a lot with you know, meeting with the village and getting their feedback on what you know what they liked to see, you know, we took very great care to make sure that the design was compatible with the rest of of the surrounding areas. And it was really, really great working with that. that sounds like
Nancy Surak24:28
That sounds like just such a fun project. I can just imagine like when you really can really truly influence something from that perspective. Like that, to me is where the gold is in the business. Right? Like that's those that's a deal that you will take with you forever, because oh yeah, we were like in the trenches, like making it happen, and then being really proud of what was constructed at the end of the day school to Okay, so when you think right now about what's happening kind of in the overall economy and the world and our business, what are some of the bigger challenges that you're seeing that you guys, either you as an individual professional or your company's like facing right now and what are you guys doing to try to overcome one or two of those challenges?
Jessica Abramson 26:37
Well, without a doubt, and you probably get this answer a lot, it's definitely rising construction costs and the supply chain and material availability. You know, we will try to underwrite deals and, you know, put in the current construction costs. And it's just so much more than, you know, what it was last year or the year before. And that's definitely a challenge trying to make new projects pencil out. And I had multiple projects under construction during COVID. But the biggest challenge was once we started having material availability issues, and you know, the, the biggest thing to do is to work with your team and try to make sure that they're ordering long lead items well in advance, you know, if they're having a problem come, you know, let us know, right away working with our specific tenants to come up with alternatives. You know, I mean, I can think of many different examples, but you know, some of them being I had a large national tenant with a terrazzo floor, that's supposed to have a 1/8 of an inch kind of separator in between the sections. And it wasn't available, and we had to have them approve a one that was a 16th of an inch at it, and it worked. And we got it in on time. We were switching out materials for pavers at the last minute. I had a tenant recently, they're trying to open up by the end of the year, their HVAC was delayed, delayed, delayed, and we said, well, you know, if you take one without the humidifier, it's in stock now. And they said, We'll take it for now just add add it later. So we installed it last week, and that worked out. But I definitely find that that's been one of the biggest, at least the that challenge when you're in the field with things under construction. But on the other side, I found that more than ever, the two teams are working together to try to find solutions. You know, the tenants construction teams, and, you know, our understanding, they say, Hey, we're running into this into all of our stores. And they've actually been great sources of information. Because if you have a tenant in our building 10 of the same stores, they know what's not available, they know what to look for, and they're sharing information with us, like, Hey, make sure you order your block concrete in advance, because it's backed up or whatever the item may be.
Nancy Surak27:54
Yeah, no, I'm glad you brought that up. Because I you know, as a land broker, I've been doing this for like 18 years. And I will tell buyers, like especially when I'm repping a seller. And I'll tell the buyers like hey, here are the issues, here's what's gonna come up, whether that's in contract negotiations, or, Hey, this is this municipality, they're gonna want this, this and this. And it always shocks me how many buyers like don't believe me, and I'm like, Okay, I didn't just start this, like six months ago, like, I know what I'm doing. I know, the issue and I just want to peep for folks that I'm doing business with not to have the struggle, you know, I had a group out of your market area actually put a deal under contract earlier this year and, or last year, I guess we've been working through it for months. And I said, hey, you know, my seller is in Europe, they're traveling for like, you know, the next four months in Europe, and you're gonna need this form. But there's this this form has to be, you're gonna need it, the county is going to require it. You know, I've seen it numerous times, and it has to be notarized. But in Europe notary. Documentation is hard to come by sometimes. And this particular county requires what I call, I don't know if this is the correct legal term website, and they want to know, digital. And, um, it's basically got authorization that says, like, yes, we're giving this developer the, the authorization to go and negotiate on behalf of the property, like what they want to do with it. And I kept saying, like, we're gonna need this, we're gonna need the time, like, get it to me get it to me get it to me, and I kept asking for it asking for it for like three months. And my emails would go unanswered, I would talk to him on the phone. They're like, Oh, yeah, we're gonna give that to you. And literally, I got a call one day, three bytes of asking if they go, Hey, so that authorization letter, like, we need that in three days. And I'm like, Yeah, my client is somewhere in Spain. I'm gonna talk to him for like, another six days, like, we're out of luck. And we figured it out. I figured out a solution. But I kept saying like, Okay, this is coming, like just, it's a little bitty thing. So I can only imagine multiplying that by like, 500 times the significance of your H fax system for a very large commercial building, you know, like, a few 50,000 square feet or 100,000 square feet like, oh, yeah, we don't have air conditioning. What are you going to do? Which is It's crazy. And I know that that's happening across the market. Hopefully that will settle out here soon. You know, but it's the experience helps. So when your clients or your tenants share those things, it just makes you guys better. Because you know what other questions to ask so glad that you shared that. I love to wrap up every interview with three fascinating questions. And I sort of alluded to this earlier, but I'm going to ask it in a little bit of a different way. Okay. If a young woman, particularly a young woman, but maybe a young guy, somebody relatively young in their career, were to call you and say, I really want to get into the development world. What's a piece of advice you could share with me to help me in that journey? What would you tell them?
Jessica Abramson 30:01
Well, I, I do mentor a lot of students through the NSU real estate program. And whether you're a student or just a young person getting into the business, I always tell them, milk the student card, as much as you can, even if just say, Hey, I'm new to the business call people you want to talk to almost anybody will talk to you for a little while, or have a phone conversation or talk to you at a networking event. Because once you get you know, many years into the business, it's a lot harder to to use that card. So use that as long as you can attend every networking event possible, introduce yourself, make those connections. And then as you're doing that, I always tell them learn about different career paths when you when you say you want to go into real estate and even development that's leasing, brokerage development, asset management. And not only that, but there's multifamily, there's retail, there's industrial, like there's a myriad of things that you can do in the real estate world. So start learning about those different things as early as possible. And then you can narrow down what it is you want to do. And a lot of times you narrow down what you want to do by figuring out what you don't want to do. So it's kind of or, you know, talk to as many people as you can as possible early on in your career.
Nancy Surak32:00
That's fantastic advice. I'm a huge proponent of that I tell folks all the time, do not be afraid to pick up the phone or to reach out to someone on on the LinkedIn, chances are, they're going to give you some time. And if they don't, that's just something to kind of, like just put it in your memory bank. Because one day, you'll be on the receiving end of that outreach. So remember, who helped you and you know, just be that person when you have an opportunity to so pay forward later.
Jessica Abramson 32:30
Yeah, I mean, even to this day, you know, two recent big projects that I had, they each had other shopping centers within a mile under construction. So I would call those other developers and I would say like, Hey, how's it going for you? What are you experiencing an image in this municipality? You know, it kind of kind of trade notes. Because people, you know, if you're willing to share information, also, you know, people want to know these things. And sometimes it's hard to find out that information.
Nancy Surak32:56
Yeah. So where's where would you? And this might be specific to your market, but where have you found the best networking? Opportunities?
Jessica Abramson 33:04
Um, me, I'm very involved with ULI, obviously, I think that is kind of one of the premier I've been involved with them in different capacities over the years. Also, you know, being in the retail world. I attend a lot of ICSC events also.
Nancy Surak33:21
Okay, thank you for that. So I always like to also ask, is there a book or a podcast that you've listened to at any point in your career that you have found to be exceptionally helpful or inspirational in your career development?
Jessica Abramson 33:36
Oh, yes, absolutely. I definitely listened to a lot of podcasts. And I'm a very avid reader. I will say in preparing for today, I listened to several episodes of your podcast, which I think were excellent. I really enjoyed all of them. I also really enjoy listening to the Fort Podcast, which is a guy named Chris Powers. He's out of Dallas Fort Worth. He has a, you know, a company called Port Capital and he interviews in depth. His episodes are usually two, one and two hours long of, you know, people in all different aspects of the real estate industry. And, you know, as far as books I know, including fiction I try to read about I probably read about 30 books a year. And I've recently been enjoying either biographies and autobiographies or, like fiction like stories of real developments. Some of my favorites that I read this year, we're really kind of been on a kick about books about developments in New York City, which has been great. I read the risk game by Francis Greenburger. He founded Time Equities. He's kind of like, they call them like the co op king. He kind of like started that Co Op process in New York City. And one of my favorites was written by a Vanity Fair reporter called Liars Ball. And it's the it's the story of the GM building in New York City, which is like a huge well known office building, which, you know, the story of the development and it changed Han several different times with very well known New York developers. And I'm currently reading one called the kings of New York. And one of the things I really like about those is that they read like novels, but they're about real people and real projects that actually happened. So, you know, I'll be reading the book, and then I'll be looking up, like, what's this building with history of this building? Or what's the story about this developer? And it's, it's really educational and entertaining at the same time.
Nancy Surak35:26
That's awesome. I have not heard of any of those. So I'm definitely gonna go put them on my reading list. Because I am fascinated by that sort of story, right? Like, what made you do that? Why did you make this decision and really looking back, like, especially up in New York, I mean, these buildings are, so some of them are so old. And just the vision that folks had to like, either locate something in a specific location or build it a certain ways just, for me, it's just really mind blowing.
Jessica Abramson 35:57
Yeah. And also the, the tolerance for risk that, you know, some of these people have is just mind boggling to me. I mean, it's very, really takes, I think, a lot of guts to pull some of those projects off.
Nancy Surak36:10
Well, it's funny that you say that, because a lot of folks asked me, particularly why I never got into the development arena. Because I'm fascinated by it. I love it. And my husband's a civil engineer. And so we're both, you know, really in the business, and we have all these contacts, and we have all this knowledge. And I'm like, I don't have the risk tolerance. That's what I tell people, I'm like, I can pitch great ideas. And I do that when I have a piece of property, I'll call people like the sales folks, I'll be like, this needs to go here. Here's why this is what should happen. But for me, personally, just take on, it's such a huge risk. And I'm like, oh, no, being a broker is risky enough. But I really nod and clap for people who do it, because that's what makes our our living environment. You know, like if those folks weren't willing to take risks, whether that's in New York, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, you know, Boise, Idaho, like we wouldn't have like awesome places to live, work and play at the end of the day. So I applaud them, I just can't be one of them. And finally, I always like to say where should folks follow you to keep up with you? Are you active on LinkedIn? Do you have any other places that you'd like to share? From a social media standpoint, if folks want to just say, like, follow what you're doing or what you're working on?
Jessica Abramson 37:26
Yes, I'm active on LinkedIn, you can find me by searching my name, Jessica Abramson. And I also really enjoy the Real Estate Group on Twitter, there's a very active group of real estate developers, and I am active there. That one is @JEOLY619. And those are the main two that I use my, my others, mostly are just personal.
Nancy Surak37:52
Well, I'm glad that you brought up Twitter. So thank you for sharing that. Because I've been following a couple strings on Twitter, I don't think that's one group that I'm necessarily following. So to like jump in, I find some very, very interesting. And there's someone in your space, actually out of Texas in the retail space, not development, I think he's on the leasing side, I forget what his handle is off the look enough. So I can put it in the in the show notes. And he's very entertaining. He is completely anonymous, whoever this guy is, but he's got quite a great following, you know, and people will he'll throw questions out or say, like, I've encountered this. And folks, like legitimate folks in the business who are not afraid to hide behind their real name, like, give comments, and I've jumped in a few times. And I'm like, I don't think that's right. Or I'll say like, 100%, like, I've seen this 1000 times in my business. But I, for such a long time had kind of gotten off at Twitter. And then and then I found these groups, and I'm like, wow, there's, there's, there's such great information available. So I'll make sure that I tag that and so that folks can go check it out. So thank you for bringing that up. Jessica, it was such a pleasure getting to know you better. I really appreciate the fact that you spend time here today to bring us through different parts of your life and your career and tell us all about sales. It was a pleasure. It's my goal in my quest to bring women real women who are in the business, like making things happen to the show to share their experience and to collect these stories. And I really appreciate you being here today.
Jessica Abramson 39:20
Thank you for inviting me, Nancy. It was a pleasure.
Nancy Surak39:22
All right. Take care. I'll see you soon.
Jessica Abramson 39:23
Thanks. Bye.
Nancy Surak39:26
Thank you for joining us for another episode of She's Wild the podcast for women in land and development. If you enjoyed today's show, please go out and rate us so that we can be found by other women in our industry. And if you know women who are working in land and development, please share this podcast with them. And if you know a total rock star woman, badass chick who is killing it in land and development anywhere in North America. I want to know who she is. Please reach out to me so that I can feed cheer her on an upcoming episode