Retail Renaissance with Liz Holland and Amy Sands

Welcome.

This is the Insider's Edge to Real Estate Investing with James Nelson, the principal and head of Avison Young's US Investment Sales group and his co host Kim Troller from his investment sales team. In this program you'll learn game changing strategies to outperform the market. James will teach you how to source, execute and capitalize on the best real estate opportunities in New York and around the world. Now here are your hosts.

Welcome back to our new season of the Insider's Edge to Real Estate Investing. I am your co host James Nelson. I'm head of US Investment sales here at Avis and Young.

And I'm Kim Troller on the US Investment sales platform here alongside James.

And today you're going to hear about the retail's changing landscape in a conversation with Liz Holland, CEO of Abel Associates and Amy Sands, partner and head of investments at eleven North Partners. They discuss post Covid retail trends including why open air grocery anchored centers are thriving and how work from home and data driven site selection are boosting rents and occupancy.

So you'll learn how consumer data can be used for acquisitions and the factors that can impact the value of a shopping center. You'll also gain insights into merchandise mix, leasing relationships and light touch value add. Liz and Amy share ways to break into commercial real estate and take on leadership roles. Just James, I just love this power women retail episode. What was really meaningful to see was Liz and Amy's mentorship dynamic and also just their vulnerability and willingness to open up about gender dynamics and the workplace and the important role that mentorship plays in advancing your career.

Yeah, I was happy just to be a part of it.

And thank you.

I know Kim, these were your guests and this is what I'm loving about this collaboration, having you on as a co host to bring in kind of a new dynamic. Some people who I haven't met before, I mean these are two really accomplished people in the retail space. Liz was the former chair of icsc. I mean that's a really big deal. I mean Amy Sands, really accomplished career. You're going to hear about the different roles that she's held and what they're now doing. Incredibly active on the acquisition side. So I love the fact that they came together, friends and kind of the chemistry between them both. Yeah, well good. So as always, you go to james nelson.com that's where you can find out more about Liz and Amy. You get the show notes for this episode and again, we built this site for you. So before, if you're new to the show, go ahead and subscribe. That's the way that we can help build the audience, get this message out to more people and we would greatly appreciate that. We're going to have our word from our sponsor and, and we'll get right into our interview with Liz Holland and Amy Santz.

Avis and Young's United States Investment Sales platform executes on multifamily office retail development and specialty asset transactions across top US markets. As experienced leaders in the industry, our integrated national team is here to help you make informed investment decisions. Whether advising on your current holdings or identifying new opportunities nationwide. Our one unified platform is built on unparalleled collaboration and connectivity across 120 full service office offices around the world. Giving clients direct access to the deepest pools of capital. We put our clients first, delivering tailor made strategies to achieve superior results.

Welcome everyone to the Insider's edge to real estate Investing. I'm James Nelson, your co host and with me is Kim Troller who's going to introduce our guests.

Yes, good morning everyone. So I have been counting down the days for this Power women in retail episode we are throwing. Thrilled to have Liz Holland, CEO of A Bell Associates who's here all the way from Chicago and Amy Sands, head of investments at 11 north here with us today. So thank you guys so much for, for being here. If you could start by briefly telling us about your role, your business and what you're focused on across the country just to kind of orient, orient the audience, that'd be great.

So I'm Liz Holland. I'm the CEO of Abel Associates. We are an 84 year old private owner, manager, developer, redeveloper of commercial property, mostly shopping centers. And we're based in Chicago, we've always been based in Chicago and you know, we look at lots of stuff all over but we're, most of our projects are in the Midwest.

Great.

And I'm Amy Sands, Head of investments for eleven North Partners. We started our company about a year and a half ago. We're former RPT executives. We formed an exclusive joint venture with Bain Capital Real Estate to go out and buy open air shopping centers. And we do this in the value add and core plus sector all across the country.

Great. And I know before the show we were talking about how the two of you met. Maybe just you want to share and give a little context.

You know, it's a typical story 15 years ago we were very much in acquiring Mode after the GFC and Amy was an ace institutional sales executive at HFF and they were really a best in Class brokerage firm. And so that was how I got to know Amy in Chicago. And you know, it's a pretty exclusive club, women in commercial real estate. So it wasn't hard for us to become friends.

And I loved Liz because I thought she was so fierce all the time and clever and smart. She always had all the right words and she stood up against all the men in the industry. And I was so proud of her when she became chairman of icsc. So I can see you.

Marketing department.

Yeah. Yeah, big deal.

Yeah, it was, Yes.

I mean the size of the organization, I mean maybe even, I mean, what, what did that look like then?

You know, it was, it was a very interesting time to be chairman of ICSC. I was the chair, I was the first vice chairman 15 to 16 and then I was the chairman 16 to 17. As you recall, back in the day, Amazon was eating everybody's lunch. Nobody, you know, brick and mortar stores were going away entirely. We did our best with all of the editorial boards of all the national publications to try to persuade them that this actually wasn't going to happen and that E commerce sales were going to level out and most E commerce businesses were going to have to create brick and mortar platforms to really gain market share. And nobody believed us. And fortunately 10 years later, we were right. But you know, we're just very happy that, you know, retail has really settled in post pandemic to really be a very viable, viable accretive asset class.

Yeah, absolutely. So when I was at Time equities, I know about 10 years ago, they were super active in buying distressed malls across the country when E commerce was taking over. And everyone thought that it was the end of the world for retail because Amazon was like you said, eating everyone's lunch. And so that created a lot of really great buying opportunities for the right sites. And it seems like now what we're seeing post Covid is this like resurgence of open air strip centers that are experiential retail where it's a destination and people will go to not only pick something up, but they'll get their hair done, go to the gym, get their nails done. It's go, go kart racing. Like it's become an experience. Can you guys speak to, to those trends and how your strategy has shifted kind of pre and post Covid, I.

Can talk about how our joint venture kind of formed with Bain. So they were monitoring the retail sector and then after Covid. So Covid, everybody thought like retail is going to die. I mean the world, everybody thought everything was dying. They're monitoring the retail sector and meanwhile, you know, everybody's sort of working through.

Trying to keep alive, I guess.

And so what Bain did was see that Covid actually proved up retail. And so when we were ready to sell, we sold RPT to Kymco. I think everybody knows that at the end of 2023, beginning of 2024, and Bain was watching and trying to figure out which operator they wanted to pair with. And what they saw was a secular shift in retail too, with people working from home. And even today people are still three to four days in the office and one to days at home. Right. And so they saw that as one and a half more days where people are going and shopping and spending money and the retailers that get it right, like you're talking about, and you're talking about with Omnichannel, like they're here to stay. And it also proved out how necessity based retail makes it through everything. And Covid, so the open air sectors become super strong and most of the shopping centers that we're investing in today have necessity based retail and grocery. And so Covid helped us.

Yeah, who would have thought that a distressed office market would just direct more people towards retail? Because I mean, I, I have friends who are working from home and at 10am on a Tuesday they'll, they'll go to a workout class because it's just, it's easy to get away with, with that kind of thing. Yes.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. What's also been really interesting. So we just came out with our quarter 3 U.S. investment sales update report yesterday. And what's been really interesting to see is the re entrance of institutions into the retail space. So if you look at 2024, the breakdown between private capital and institutions was it was 65% private and 7% institutions. Today, like 2025, year to date, it's 58% private and 20% institutions. So there has been a 13% increase year over year of institutional capital flowing into the retail space, which I think says a lot about the momentum that everyone's kind of experiencing.

Yeah, no, And I think people now know they can see it for what it is. Right. So a lot of the dust has settled about what the fears were 10 years ago.

Yeah. And I feel like for all of us that have been in retail for, I don't know, the last 15 or 20 years. Right. Like now it's our time and you're actually being able to push retailers to pay you more in shopping centers because they need to expand, they know they need to have a presence Instead of begging them to come, please fill my center, please stay. And oh yeah, I'll give you the deepest discount ever. Like we're seeing like more. The landlord has more power today and rents pushing. So it's like it's great to be in retail, but it's become so popular in the space that there's also a lot more competition and lots of money being raised around the sector.

But that's also true because there's very little supply being built.

Right.

Ten years ago, you know, you could swing a dead cat, you would hit four shopping centers under construction. And now that's completely changed.

Yeah.

And so the absorption, you know, everybody used to talk about the US being over retailed.

Right.

We had 24 square feet per person and I think our next closest first world competitor was Canada at 12. And now, you know, that's changed dramatically.

So what do you all look for in an investment? I mean, there's many different ways to invest in retail, so whether, you know, type of retail center. But also maybe talk a little bit about geography. So I mean you can hear the sirens in the background. We're here, urban New York City, Chicago. Actually. I think the Journal had a nice story this past week about how the Miracle Mile is coming back Michigan Avenue. So that's great to see.

But obviously strong demand drivers and suburbs as well. So how do you, I mean, from a strategy of kind of what you're looking to invest in and where, how do you go about that?

So, you know, we, our company's 84 years old. We like markets where the largest metropolitan area in the state is also the state capital. Because what that means is that you don't have a boom and you don't have a bust. If we think about what those markets are, it's Salt Lake, it's Boise, it's Denver, it's, it's Omaha, Lincoln, they're getting pretty close together. It's Des Moines, it's Indianapolis, it's Little Rock, it's Nashville. You know, Chicago is kind of different. Ohio is a little different because you have five MSAs. But Columbus is the largest metropolitan area and also the state capital because every professional in that state is in that market. Plus you have the fixed employment of the state government. And so you tend to have a higher percentage of white collar employment than in most places. Right. I talked about a lot of pretty sparsely populated states in the list I just gave. And so those tend to be the markets where we see if you make the right investment in the right location, it's going to Be great forever.

So they're kind of recession proof.

Right? You don't have a boom and you don't have a bust. Exactly. You don't see crazy cap rate compression when things are amazing on the coast. Right. We saw that kind of 2010 to 2015. But then you also didn't have any fallout when the market shifted after Covid.

And Amy, what would you say kind of defines your investment strategy? What attracted Bain to the space?

So Bain has a consumer division. So they invest in, and they invest in retailers. So they have a lot of data and they track that and they have a scoring model on them. So they were all in on retail because they understand it really well. It was about finding like the right operator and they were, they had tracked Brian Harper's track record over the last several years and had decided that because of what he was able to do with RPT and bring that into a more. It was RPT started out as Ramco Gershonson as a small Midwestern reit and he made it more into an institutional reit and they like that. So. But what Bain is really good at is their consumer side and the retail side. And so we use their data too to help us track the retailers and where they want to be. And it's a lot what Liz says too, we do do a lot in the primary markets as well because we like demographics and we feel like if the demos are there, it's a safety net. Right. Like if for whatever reason that retail center needed to become something else, you have the demographics to support it. But it's all about what the consumer wants and what the retailer, where the retailer is going because they know so much about like the shopping and stuff.

Based off that data that makes a lot of sense. So out of those kind of primary markets which, which are the ones that you're targeting, I is it more like high barrier to entry or low barrier to entry?

High barrier to entry. But we're looking like right now we just bought about a, a couple months ago we bought a collection of grocery anchored shopping centers from Peachum and Florida and one in South Carolina. All well, seven of them are grocery anchored but they're all necessity based retail. So like other investors, I hate to be just like other investors but we like, we have found a lot of opportunity in the growth markets where we can grow the rents. I love the Midwest and I love Chicago because that's where my career was for 15 years.

But I see the merits and why people are looking at properties on the growth markets. But we're looking, we're looking everywhere. Our first assets that we bought were in Oklahoma and I never would have thought that the first pin on the map would be Oklahoma, but that was dual anchored by a Whole Foods and a Trader Joe's. And then there's a lifestyle component.

But we're able to like grow the rents here, take good assets to like great assets, but we're looking all over the country. Demos are important to us though, and if they're light on population, if there's like a story. And the great part about like Bain as being a partner again is they have all that retail knowledge from owning retailers. So they're not the type of institutional partner that you have to like drag along and be like, please invest here. Like, they get it, you know, and we're in it together with them. And Brian's like, amazing at to like being able to articulate the story. And he's got, he goes way back to like the Rouse GGP day. So he knows every market really intimately and the shopping centers.

And so I'm glad you brought up that, that trade, for those of you who are not familiar, that was a 395 million dollar portfolio trade. What was it, 13 different strip centers across Florida and South Carolina.

Yep.

That's an incredible, incredible purchase. So we're excited to see how.

Yeah, we were, we are really excited. We're, like I said, we're about a year and a half into our company and we have over 600 million and a, um, out the door, so. And we have a lot more money to spend, so it's exciting. I love it. And I like the opportunity, like getting to meet people like you. And I love shopping, which is why I've continued to be in this industry as well. And that's how I got into it. Yeah, I mean, long time ago.

Question for you both, why retail? How did you get into the space in the first place? And what's your favorite thing about it?

So literally my first job in the real estate industry was with General Growth Properties. That's how Brian and I had known each other. And I. So this was out of college, right? I didn't know anything about real estate. I grew up on a farm in Iowa. And so I, when I wanted to go to Chicago, everybody after school, I went to school in Iowa too, had moved to Chicago or like a major city. And so I'm sending out resumes and I have all these job interviews through different people who'd hooked me up with people they know at companies. And I got the interview at general growth all by myself by sending my resume in. And I had no idea what it meant to, like, analyze or do any of this. I just knew that I was good at shopping, and so I was going to be able to do this job. And then that kind of set me on a course. Like, I didn't. I sort of fell into real estate, like, by dumb luck, but I loved it. And it's not just the shopping, right, Because I'm not at. I'm not going to get my, like, I don't know, my hair done daily or whatever. But it's just I. I like the idea of them becoming a, like, community. And it does provide, like, entertainment, and I. I enjoy that. So I have a passion for it. And it's fun to be able to walk around and be like, look what we own and look at how we're making it better, you know, so. And it's a good investment, too. So. And it's. This is a social business, right? So those kinds of. Really. That's how I met Liz, right? Like, relationship.

So, yeah.

What about you, Liz?

You know, so I'm the third generation of the ownership at my company, and the company got into retail in 1946 when Sears, who was an office tenant of our company in downtown Chicago, came to my grandfather and his brother and said, so with the GI Bill, there's this new thing called the shopping center. And we got to drive around the Midwest, and we need all these stores in the suburban areas, and we want you to build a shopping center across the street from our Sears store. And so they did that all over the Midwest by 1959. So, you know, a long time, 12 years later, they said, so we think the shopping center thing has legs and we'll be part of it. So you build the shopping center, and we'll be at one end. We'll anchor it with a Sears store. And so they did that very effectively. And so, you know, I got drafted at the end of 1997 to come back and take over the business. And so that's what I did. And, you know, I've made it my own thing. And. And I'm with Amy. I think that if you look at who the customers are that we're looking to attract, 70% of all the purchases made in organized shopping centers are made by women. If you include purchases they influence, it goes over 90%. And so the idea that Kim and Amy and Liz aren't the people making all of these, you know, capital allocation.

Decisions.

We'Re not making all the capital allocation Decisions about what to put where and why. You know, that we should really be the people at the head of all these public companies because we're the ones who know. I mean, I tore down a shopping center almost 50 years to the day that my grandfather cut the ribbon to open it. I put a shovel in the ground to tear it down and start over. And I had an 8 month old at the time. And I put Costco across the parking lot from Fresh Market and Stein Mart and Starbucks because I could literally drive my car and do all the shopping that I needed to do with my kid in the backseat and not think about, you know, schlepping her out every time I needed something different. So I think that you do bring a different set, skill set to it.

So is it really kind of the, the opportunities that, that you see a need for being repositioned? So you see something about a shopping center that maybe is not performing and kind of, what is it about it that gives you the confidence or the idea? I mean, what, what is it you said to kind of improve it? So what are the kind of examples of things that you're doing to make it a more successful center?

A lot of it is operational efficiencies. Right. And I think it's leasing relationships we have with retailers. Our head of leasing who came over from RPT has tons of relationships with retailers. We have, you know, leaning on Bain with that. So we're not full scale like redeveloping shopping centers. We're releasing them. We might be adding like an out parcel or two, but we're improving the merchandise mix and elevating the shopping centers by bringing in. And it doesn't mean like, it's like bringing in upscale retailers, but it's a better mix of retailers that brings more traffic to the center and then thereby they're higher rents and then the cap rates compress because they become holistically better shopping centers. And then, you know, we do all the things everybody else does, like paint them and improve landscaping and things like that. But really the merchandise mix and how we want to curate it for the community that it's in.

So, so, and Liz, you alluded this as well as having, you know, the Costco near the Starbucks. But you know, because co tenancy is so critical to the success of these retail investments, how do you determine what, what is the right retail mix or what the right tendency is?

Well, so I think it's a two part question now because it's no longer the case. You know, if Amy and I and Kim were doing this 50 years ago, we would have a very different kind of data set to decide now there's enough retail everywhere. So the question is, how do you make what's there more relevant? Right. Because it still has to have retail relevancy. Right. Because there's a lot that doesn't. There's a lot that's going away, that has gone away, but that still needs to go away. So does the site have retail relevance? And then the second question is who is the demographic? Like who's coming here? So technology has certainly helped all of our ability to determine who the shoppers are now. And then the question is, how do you meet their needs? Right. Because you can never change the location.

Right.

That's the beauty of real estate. But you can to Amy's earlier point about making it better, making it meet the needs of the consumers that are already coming there in a more amazing way. I mean, we're now doing ground up development, which is a little crazy. It's a very exclusive club in 2025.

But you're doing that speculatively or you have an anchor when you do that.

So the banks don't let you do very much speculatively. But no, I mean we are doing from the dirt up, like starting over, parking lot up. Yeah. So. And it's because we can make, you know, it's, it's the whole is going to be greater than the sum of the parts.

Right.

And you're going to just, it becomes, when you create retail relevancy, it drives the rent, it drives the attractiveness. We now have retailers calling us and this isn't in a glamorous spot. James, don't get me wrong, I'm not doing this on Long Island. I'm doing it in Toledo, Ohio. So it's a different kind of question, but it happens. Yeah.

How do you go about determining the local consumer demand? Are you looking at place or AI data?

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, lots of that. And like talking to like leasing brokers, like boots on the ground, talking to other owners in the, you know, the area, like a lot of conversations and leaning on like your relationships to get the real scoop. Right. Because if you're just relying on who's selling it to you, and I can say that because I was on that side.

Yeah.

Anybody.

Yeah, you get just the rose colored glasses. So. But if you like, if you buy in a good location, which is why demographics and everything that Liz was talking about before, like, you know that you can figure this out, Right. Because.

You can make it better or it becomes something else. But if you're in an area that doesn't have the demographics or it doesn't have the demand drivers, you're probably spending money that you're not going to get any return on.

So, speaking of data, I know Liz is also the CEO of a technology company that uses a site selection software for retailers called Layer Cake.

Created a site selection. Created it. It was. Yes.

So please tell us about this.

You.

It was tricky.

I mean, so we did it a while ago, so there was not a new thing, but it was done. You know, necessity is the mother of invention. And the person who actually started it is, became my partner throughout when he decided to expand it. But, you know, he was Target's broker in the Midwest, in Chicago and some other places. And so it became clear that every developer was sending him their sites, and so he needed an organized way to show it to them. And so necessity became the mother of invention. And so that was Layer Cake.

So, Amy, I was going to ask you had brought up kind of making the transition, maybe lessons learned from being a broker to an investor. So just curious. And we have a lot of brokers who listen to the show as well. So, you know, kind of your decision to make the transition from brokerage to the principal side, and how did that prepare you or where did you need to level up?

So I did not think that I would be doing this. I didn't know if I was going to be a broker for the duration of my career, but I didn't know that I'd be moving to New York City. And the first role was becoming head of investments for Public Re. So.

Brian, I had sold properties for Brian Harper in Chicago. And I started to get into, like, he would start to talk to me about his issues with, with the reap, right? Like, how do I grow the re? Like, what are the opportunities? What are you seeing? And I took a lot of time to like, really think about this with them. And in doing that, he kept telling me, he's like, we're going to be partners again someday. We're going to be partners. I'm like, and when you do a good job for someone, they pay you nice compliments, right? But you move on. You're on an accident. Like, oh, that's so nice. Whatever. And then he came to me, he's like, no, I'm serious. Like, I really want you to, you know, he goes, if you want to stay in Chicago for, for a while, whatever, but I want you to come run the investment platform. And then, you know, whatever happens with the rate, because It's a small reit.

I want to be partners with you in the future on whatever we build together. And I kept saying no. And I'm like, I. And then a really good mentor of mine, I talked to him about it and he's like, what are you doing? He's like, this is an amazing opportunity that JLL can't offer you. But I had just become the, it was at the end of the year, the year before. I had just become one of the co leads of the Chicago Capital Markets office, which at the time was the second largest after Dallas, where like the C Suite sat. And so I was extremely happy. Like, I'm like, oh my God, I'm finally on leadership. It's like 99 men and one woman. And I'm like, I'm running an office. Like, I loved it. And Brian just KE coming after me and I'm like, you know what? Check I did it. And I'm like, now I'm on to doing something new and I love this. So what I did at HFF is because that's where I started for jll, bought HFF is I built the retail platform in the Midwest there. So I like building and creating a culture and, and making something like out of nothing into something good and productive and profitable. So the transition's been awesome. But it, it's a lot, right? We're a startup, so you wear a lot of hats. Bain's an incredible partner, Brian's an incredible partner. And the, the six core of us that came over from RPT has been great, but it's like building a company, like it's, it's a lot, but I've enjoyed it. And the move to New York City has been crazy good. I love it here. And I lived in Chicago since I graduated from college, so.

It'S been, it's been very fascinating for me. We sold the company, restarted in matter of what, two and a half years? I think I've been here total.

So.

So speaking of leadership, and we touched a little bit on this earlier, all three of you are very active in icsc and as, as we mentioned, Liz was the global chair chairman in 2017, 2018. And I know Amy is also the co chair of the programs committee of uli. These networking groups are really great. They're kind of like what you, you get out of them, what you put in. And so to fully utilize them, you really need to have some sort of leadership role and join a committee or run a committee. So my question for you is how do you know when it's the right time to volunteer yourself to be in a leadership position, or does it typically take someone else on the outside that kind of pushes you that direction and puts you up for something that maybe you didn't realize you were ready for?

Well, so I don't know that you volunteer for the leadership position as much as you just get involved. Right. And so I came to work in real estate from having worked in the federal. At the federal government. And it was 1997, and ICSC was lobbying bankruptcy legislation. I was a bankruptcy lawyer. So I thought, well, this is. This will be easy. Like, I'll just sign up to do that. And so I signed up to do that. And that, you know, led to something else, led to something else, led to something else. And so I think it's a great networking. These organizations do a tremendous job of bringing professionals together. ULI, ICSC, it's not just, you know, there's BizNow does great events. I mean, you know, there are a lot of them. And so I think just go and get involved. I mean, it's. It's that. It's that, to Amy's point, it's a social industry. And I was never a particularly socially adept professional. Like, that was the reason why I was a bankruptcy lawyer. And so the idea that I had to go into a ballroom with 300 other people that I didn't know actually make conversation felt like eternity eternal damnation to me.

That's crazy how she truly is.

But, you know, you figure it out and you kind of have to do it, right? It's jumping off the diving board into the deep end of the pool. And so I would just say get involved at whatever level you feel comfortable, lean into whatever skill set you think you have, and everybody's very nice, and.

You get more out of it than just going to the presentations that they have. When you volunteer or get on a board, you get to meet a lot of other people. And if you're newer in the industry, that elevates you because you're making more connections, right? And I always tell, like, people getting into the industry, like, you have mentors and you have advocates, right? And they can be the same thing, but. But they possibly aren't the same thing. The people teaching you the nuts and bolts of the business aren't the people necessarily that are talking good things about you when you're not in the room and helping elevate your career. So that's where you find those people is going to those networking events. And when you get on a board or you volunteer to do something, you have more of a reason, especially if you're shy or introvert, to be talking to them. So you don't just have to walk up at an event and, hi, I'm Amy Sands. Right. Like you're, you know, people. People in there already, so.

Right.

I love that question and also the advice. And I always say, you know, don't just be a joiner and don't, don't do something just to put it on your LinkedIn profile. Right. I mean, it's like really be selective and really. And again, as you said, you know, kind of gravitate towards your strengths, but, you know, get involved, you know, and it's, you know, and not with the expectation in return, but like, once you start engaging with other people who want to be engaged, guess what? But, you know, business comes from it, so.

Totally. Yeah. And you never know where it's going to come. It's a. And the universe of professionals and commercial real estate is really tiny.

Amy, you touched on an important point, which is mentorship. And, and you guys have a really great mentor. Mentee relationship right here.

How.

How do you go about finding a mentor? How do you know when it's the right mentor? And what are some of the. The greatest kind of lessons that you guys have learned from this experience?

So I.

At HFF jll, it was mostly men, right. That I worked with and even in the Chicago office. So I looked up to them and I wanted to be like them so much. So it's funny, I've told this story quite a few times now, but I can remember thinking I wanted to look like them and they wore pants suits every day, so that's what I would wear to the office every day. And we went to a pitch and we came out of there, and the guys that I had worked with at the time, Jeff Bramson and Jamie, think I made a comment to them. I said, I go, there was a girl at the meeting. And they just sort of looked at me and they're like, yeah. And I said, she wasn't wearing a pantsuit. And they looked at me and they were like, yeah. So. And I was like, I felt like everyone should look like the men, right? And so I just started asking more questions and like, trusted them. Right. That's who I worked for. And it. The mentoring, I feel like, can be like your manager because they have to teach you stuff. But the advocate comes from when you are vulnerable and you're. You ask questions and you take the time to really ask questions. People that respond to that. They just sometimes. And maybe it's just, like, naivety. People want to help you. Right. And grow you and mentor you through the industry, but it's not like. Like, Liz and I had a connection. I think you have to feel a connection because I have had people come up to me, and I've mentored a ton of people. And sometimes you're like, yeah. Like, it doesn't. You don't have that, like, chemistry, but you can feel when you click with someone. But I think you. You have to be vulnerable in any relationship. To build good relationships, you kind of have to be vulnerable. And I was to these guys, and I worked with them for 15 years. Like, they're my closest supporters. I would tell you, like, the JLL folks that I grew up under, their leadership, they were inspirational. They never let me quit. They. And if I was like, I can't do it anymore. I can't make this deal happen, they're like, you will go back to your desk and you'll figure out how to make you Amy Sands. You will not give up. Like, it was that kind of.

But.

But it's because I also took the time, had the grit, and was like, I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna get to the top of my game and be really good at it. But I think it kind of. You have to put it on yourself. And then you also, like, have to feel chemistry with.

Yeah. I mean, you have. It's a friendship. Right. At the end of the day, you may not be at the same point in your career. You may not be in the same area. You may not have a lot of other venn in the diagram, but if you can say that you're friends, then to Amy's exact point, you can be vulnerable. You know, I was very lucky that there were kind of two men in Chicago when I got into the real estate business. Norris.

Yeah.

And Bill Shield, who kind of took me under their wing and were like, oh, my God, we have a girl like this.

Yeah. Yeah.

Because at the time, to get into ICSC in Chicago, somebody had to will you their spot. I mean, it was very difficult. And so I think they felt like, oh, my God, diversity. So they were excited for that, and they were just amazing, you know, And I worked with them very effectively. You know, Norris and I then ended up working together for many years. And so that was never planned, but it does make a huge difference when you can. Somebody is really your friend.

Yeah.

I'd love to get your thoughts on how we can continue to have Better gender diversity in the industry. And you know, I still, I mean, things have definitely changed for the positive in the 25 plus years that I've been doing this, but still we'll post an application for a position, doesn't matter if it's an analyst or a salesperson. And it still feels like nine out of the 10.

Candidates who apply are men. So I've got to also imagine if you're a woman in the industry and you're kind of looking into these offices that are still, you know, male dominated, you might say, well, I don't know, is this where I want to be? Is there a path for me to grow? So like, I don't know, I know there's a lot of questions kind of wrapped in there, but how, how do we continue to do a better job?

You know, so I, I have three daughters, so I kind of feel like it is a. The solute, the problem is going to solve itself because Currently women earn two BAs for every one BA earned by a man. And so if that's the first conductor who punches your ticket at a certain point, James, the only eligible pool will be more women than men, whether they think it's a conducive career for women or not. I think 27 years ago was very different than it is today. And so I have had a lot of, I feel a lot of encouragement that I was the fourth chairman of ICSC, fourth woman chairman from 59 to 2016. It's a long time for me to be the fourth, but. And when they asked me what are you hoping is the fourth? And I said that nobody's talking about it when there's the fifth and the sixth. And now there's been the fifth and the sixth. And so I feel really good about that, that this has now not become like some earth shattering event. So I just feel like over time, men in the industry get used to working with women in the industry for a long time, you know, and real estate too. No matter what your asset class, not just retail, is still very much a cult of personality. Right. What we do is such a hard job that if you're not absolutely driven to do it and to succeed, to Amy's earlier point, it doesn't come. And so I think over time it'll just be easier for it to be a very different pool of candidates to apply for the jobs you're talking about and then for the people who actually get the jobs.

Yeah, and with mentorship too. I think it's important for women to not only have female mentors but also to have absolutely male mentors as well. It's not like an exclusive one or the other.

Not at all.

I. I would say too, like.

So on our. It's there's three women and three men. Like right now as part of rpt, it's really important to Brian to have diversity. So he supports that. If it's supported at the top. Right. To be trying to actively like recruit in. And it's recruiting in the best candidate. But you're giving some options, right. Like you're trying to get like pull from all the different pools and not just, you know, the typical stereotype of what everyone generally sees. I ha. I would say though, like brokerage, there's still a lot less women on the investment sales side.

And there's a lot more. Just because there's way more positions on the principal side. Right. That you can do. And brokerage is like analysts or producer. Right. The salesperson. There's not as many roles on that side. But when I was at jll, they were doing a very, very good job at actively going into colleges and trying to talk about it so that you get them before they've already started in the industry and talk about what it is we do and how cool it can be, you know, and it's a great stepping stone for learning how to analyze and building blocks for the industry.

So.

Wow.

Well, this has been. Wow, a lot of takeaways here. So I did want to ask you and I feel like we're this mentorship and all the life advice, but I did before I forget, I did want to ask and we haven't talked a lot about Chicago on this show. And so I'd love to talk about the resurgence and I'd also like to talk a little bit about quality of life safety and how important it is. I actually was at an event in LA at the State of the Market and Ethan Penner said that quality of life safety is the number one thing for real estate investing because if you don't have that, then nothing else matters. So clearly Chicago, it's a city. It's had issues. It seems to be, I guess, getting better. I mean, it said in the article. Yes.

So I live in the city of Chicago.

Yes.

Full disclosure, I've lived. I lived in New York for 10 years from 1985 to 1995. So kind of Ed Koch to Rudy Giuliani. So a very disparate time to live in New York. I lived in Washington D.C. for two years. So I have some appreciation for what Chicago was and is it is not as crazy as the national media would make it sound. It was less crazy before the federal government decided that it needed some intervention. But I will tell you that even with that, you know, I take the L to work with my daughters who are on their way to public high school in the Loop. We my, you know, we use the parks, we use the trails, everybody's out. So what you read is very different than what we experience when they're there. But I think that's true no matter where you live. Live in the country, right. Looking at it from the outside in, right. The drone view is very different than the on the ground view. And so I think Chicago, if you think about the top five MSAs in the country that contribute to GDP, right, New York is almost $3 trillion. It's far and away the highest. LA is second, I think at like 900 billion. Chicago is third at like 780 billion. Fourth is the Bay Area and fifth is Washington D.C. but they're way down. So when you think about Chicago as an economic juggernaut, it is an economic juggernaut. Like you can't just kind of fly over it and pretend that it's just a bunch of crime ridden war zones that needs.

Federal intervention. And so I feel like, look, the thing about Chicago that bothers me the most is somebody who's lived there for 27 years and grew up there is that all of our wounds are self inflicted. Right? We probably sit in the most physically beautiful spot of any city in the country because of the access to the water as a 16 mile long park. All of our wounds are self inflicted and they all come down to poor municipal leadership. And so that's fixable, right? And so if you think about real estate investing as a long term play, the play is to get in at a good price, A great, you know, good asset at a good price. Right? Use the Buffett Munger rule and then stay in it. I mean, Draper and Kramer is a great example. Stay in it and work it and make it better and help to make the community more engaged with effective leadership. That's the goal.

One, one last question before we wrap things up because Liz mentioned Draper and Kramer. So Liz serves on the board of Draper and Kramer, among many other public and private companies. And as a side note, Liz and I met because my great, great grandfather founded Drapery and Kramer in the 1800s after the Chicago fire. So we have a nice personal connection there. But why, why do you sit on so many boards? Like why you do it and what are, what are Some major lessons that you've learned along the way?

Well, you know, look, I run a small real estate business and the public company service that I've been blessed enough to have been given the opportunity to do has made me way better at my day job because they do it at a much. You know, capital allocation is the same math, no matter how many decimal places are in your answer.

Right?

And watching people do it at Federal Realty Investment Trust, which is probably the tippy tippy top of multi use high end retail development companies, owners and operators in the country, to watch what was created at vici, which was really like baking an entirely new pie with an independent owner of, of gaming and experiential real estate, has made me so much better at allocating the capital that I get to allocate on a daily basis to make sure that I understand what's happening. And I watch how these incredible executives do it. I mean, I use Draper and Kramer only because, you know, everyone wants to be diversified, right? Nobody wants to have all their eggs in one basket, except at the same time sometimes when that, you know, kind of put your, all your eggs in one basket and watch that basket. Right? That's what your grandmother always told you to do. And so sometimes that is the better choice, right? Because when that boat rises in that rising tide, that can be a much better place to be invested. And I think that's been Draper and Kramer's experience being in Chicago with multifamily. Wow.

Amazing.

Do I have time for one more bonus question or was that already the bonus? I would say, Amy, advice for our listeners. We get a lot of students who listen also, maybe someone is thinking of getting into the business. Maybe there's a young woman out there who's thinking about, you know, how do I get into, you know, your seats and investing. I mean, what, what, what advice would you give someone out there to get into the business? It's a good place to start.

Good place. I, I sincerely think a great place to start is an analyst, like a junior analyst on the brokerage side because you get a ton of reps and depending on the brokerage company, you can float between retail, office, industrial, any of the platforms, student housing. So I think it's an amazing place to like get a base.

And what I would also say if I could reverse the clock and, you know, not trying to dress and look like my male counterparts is be authentic. Because everybody likes an authentic person and that's who they want to do business with, that's who they want to hang out with. If you think about your friends, et cetera, and have grit and result resiliency, you're going to run into issues, you're going to fail, you're going to do things that, that you know, you think it's the end of the world, but pick yourself back up and keep going. Because I never could have imagined that I'd be sitting here now from where I started. So I think those are the two number one things and there's a ton of places to start. But I think starting as an analyst is such a great role, whether you're on the principal side or the brokerage side, because learning those financial building blocks are. They'll take you anywhere.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm feeling so inspired right now. So thank you so much for joining us. This has been such a pleasure.

Amazing. Yes, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your experience. And thank you everyone for joining. And as we always say, the best thing you can do, and especially if you receive benefit from this, and I don't know how you couldn't, is share this with a friend. There's probably someone out there who could really benefit by this conversation. And so, so that's really an incredible thing to share. And as always, you go to james nelson.com built this site. It's not about me built it for you. That's where you can find the show notes on this episode. It's how you can figure out how to connect with Amy and Liz. A lot of other helpful resources there. So until next week, thank you again for joining.

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