The Signet Podcast – Stuart Zall Transcript

In this episode, Eduardo Signet speaks with Denver commercial real estate broker, landlord, and investor Stuart Zall, founder of The Zall Company.

The conversation explores how relationships, tenant selection, networking, mentorship, long-term ownership, and neighborhood-building shape success in commercial real estate. Stuart shares lessons from his career in retail leasing, property ownership, Denver development, international projects, and the practical realities of working with landlords, tenants, brokers, contractors, and emerging brands.

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Podcast transcript

SIGNET: Stuart, thank you for coming. I have so much to ask you. I want to introduce you as the broker and landlord in the Denver market, although you do brokerage and properties everywhere, including a deal in China. You have quite a lot of experience. Do you want to say a little bit about yourself or introduce yourself?

STUART ZALL:

I am Stuart Zall, founder of The Zall Company, which I founded in 2000.
I did not grow up expecting to go into real estate, and I did not come from a multigenerational real estate family.
I studied accounting at the University of Denver, got my CPA, and started at Arthur Andersen, but I lasted only about a year.
I moved into real estate almost by accident after helping Steve Gettleman with accounting on a strip center, then being asked to help lease it by calling people from the phone book.
I learned by “dialing for dollars,” got results, and eventually moved through Lakeside Mall, Taubman, and outlet-mall projects around the country.
Taubman taught me the art of leasing, merchandising, and building tenant relationships across multiple markets.
In 2000, when my firm was bought, I chose to start my own business instead of moving, and the business grew from hired-gun leasing work into a brokerage company.
Along the way, I started buying properties when opportunities came up, often through partnerships, because I believe successful brokers should have some investment exposure to commercial real estate.
I eventually bought the Larimer building where we are now, partly because I needed space for my own company and could lease the rest to another tenant.
Having a storefront and a sign on the street has changed the business because people now drive by, see the company, and call.

SIGNET: It is so interesting. I love this area. I have been here a few times and have been to the restaurants. I did not realize everything was right on this block, like Barcelona, Federales, and other places. It is a cool part of town. How did you know this was going to become that?

STUART ZALL:

Sometimes you get lucky.
A friend from New York, Stephanie Rubenstein, was representing a concept connected to the founder of Lululemon, and they wanted a gritty part of town for a millennial worker-focused concept.
At that time, Larimer Street was very rough; Denver Central Market was not open, and there was very little there besides Ratio Brewery.
My friend saw something in the area that reminded her of Brooklyn, and I trusted her perspective even though I did not fully see it myself at first.
I made it a quest to find a building in that area, and we got what I believe is one of the best blocks on Larimer Street in RiNo.
When I bought the building, I was nervous enough that I did not tell my wife exactly where it was at first.
The area still has city challenges, but the building has worked out extremely well.
My advice is not to overanalyze real estate; sometimes you have to find it, take the risk, and let time work for you.
Real estate is scary because you are putting a lot at risk, but time can become your best friend if you take the chance.

SIGNET: You hit on so many points I want to talk about. Mentorship is one. First, can you talk about your mentors and the values you learned in your training with Taubman? You have also been a mentor for me in Denver, and I have met many people you have mentored who became incredibly successful. What qualities do you look for in people that lead them to success?

STUART ZALL:

I think it starts with heart.
If you have passion for what you do, then it does not feel like work.
You need drive, passion, and the ability to dream.
I think younger people are missing face-to-face communication because so much is done through texting, Instagram, and efficient digital communication.
When I started, even sending someone a picture of a space took days, and that slower process created dialogue and relationship-building.
Today, information can be sent instantly, but the relationship process can be lost.
Networking begins with meeting people and building relationships.
I try to create platforms, such as breakfasts, where people can meet others who may help advance their careers.
If you want to make deals, you need to put yourself where decision-makers are, such as shopping-center conventions and industry events.
You should not only spend time with people you already know; you should try to meet as many people as possible and then follow through.
Many deals begin with a cup of coffee, a handshake, or simply bumping into someone.

SIGNET: I love the idea of networking outside your own category. Developers often network with developers, and brokers often network with brokers. I have looked at finance events and capital groups because you get exposure to different people and make different links. One thing I have heard you say is that you never know where a deal is going to come from, and it is about being there. Is that one of the ideas?

STUART ZALL:

I learned something from doing business in China: if you are in a room where everyone speaks English, you are less valuable, but if you are the one person who speaks a language no one else speaks, you become extremely valuable.
I apply that metaphor to real estate networking.
If I am in a room full of brokers, everyone already understands leasing, so I am less differentiated.
If I am in a room where no one understands what I do, then I may be able to provide something valuable.
I like working with contractors, architects, finance people, and others connected to real estate but not doing the exact same thing.
I see networking as collaboration, where different people can benefit from different parts of the same opportunity.
I try to pay it forward by connecting general contractors or other professionals with people who may help them, without keeping a strict scorecard.
Those relationships often come back in useful ways, even if not immediately.
Mentoring people is not just telling them what to do; it is encouraging them to go out, network, socialize, talk to people, and learn from events.
As an example, I paid to meet Danny Meyer at an event, got a signed book, introduced myself, and created a connection that later became useful.
You cannot build those kinds of connections if you only sit in the audience; sometimes you need to go to the front and introduce yourself.

SIGNET: You talked about win-win situations. One thing you have said before, and I have seen you do, is that you want your tenants, your clients, and the people you represent to win. You have said that after the lease is signed and the commission is done, that is when you start to work by helping promote them, because if they expand, they are going to call you. What do you do after the lease is signed, since they still have so much to do?

STUART ZALL:

You can go too far and become your client’s outsourced administrative staff, so you should not go looking for trouble.
It is still important to check in and help when there are problems.
I try to guide clients toward good people, such as reliable liquor-license attorneys, contractors, or other professionals.
I prefer to give clients two or three strong referrals rather than just one, so they can do their own homework and choose.
My role is to point them toward people who are tried and true, not to make every decision for them.
Most of the help is needed between signing the lease and opening the store.
After opening, I cannot solve every operational problem, such as labor or marketing, but I can pick up the phone and be available.
Signing a lease can be a multimillion-dollar commitment, so I want the tenant to succeed.
I once helped a restaurant franchisee renegotiate terms and work through problems even though I technically represented the landlord.
A lot of salespeople disappear after they get paid, but we want continuity, repeat business, and clients who know we tried to help.
At the core, I see our work as solving problems.

SIGNET: I love the way your brain thinks. You are very creative. Taking a wider-angle point of view, why commercial versus residential? I love commercial, but I am curious why you chose that path.

STUART ZALL:

Triple-net leases are a major reason.
I had experience with residential early on, including buying condos during a period when banks wanted properties off their books.
At one point, I had about 50 condos with a partner.
Residential was more management-intensive, especially before today’s technology made banking and administration easier.
I do not have the patience for residential.
Commercial is more interesting to me because I am fascinated by businesses, retail, and how those businesses operate.
I moved most of my residential holdings into commercial projects over time.
In commercial, if a store does not work out for an operator with many stores, it is usually not as emotionally catastrophic as something going wrong with someone’s home.
Residential deals involve people’s shelter and can be more personal and stressful.

SIGNET: In commercial real estate, what trends are you looking out for? We have tariffs, the internet has been affecting retail for a while, and there are other forces in the market.

STUART ZALL:

People have probably been worrying about the future of retail and commerce since ancient times.
Humans will always need commerce in one form or another.
There will be AI, headwinds, and other changes, and the key is to keep pivoting.
If you sit back and do nothing, you are going to be dead.
COVID was a major test for restaurants, and the smart operators quickly moved into patio seating, takeout, and alcohol-to-go where allowed.
Apparel is changing because so much can be bought online, but people still shop when traveling or looking for experiences.
Food still has to be made somewhere, even if DoorDash or another service delivers it.
I think ghost kitchens have mostly been a bust because people still need to see, experience, and trust a restaurant.
Food, entertainment, and apparel will remain, but models may change, stores may get smaller, and department stores need to reinvent themselves.

SIGNET: I am loving these public markets you see everywhere. I drove up and down the coast, and places like San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara have public markets. Here there is The Hangar and Edgewater. I love those developments because they have synergy together if they are done well. Colorado Mills may have been an example of that 15 or 20 years ago.

STUART ZALL:

Denver is often a poster child for jumping on trends harder than other cities.
We probably overdid the public market and food hall concept.
Some public markets and food halls are winners, but others do not work.
It is not enough to build a food hall and assume people will show up.
You still have to put real thought into the concept, location, tenant mix, and execution.
Denver Central Market and Edgewater are strong examples.
Some others have gone out of business, which shows the model is not automatically successful.
If the concept is done right, it can work very well.

SIGNET: Your company has come such a long way. I think it is incredible that you started as an accountant, which uses a certain type of brain, and then went into such a relationship-heavy business. What qualities did you bring from accounting into your current work?

STUART ZALL:

I can understand financial statements, accounts receivable, and the basic mechanics of a business.
That is valuable because many brokers do not really understand the business side.
I understand operating properties and mortgages.
At the same time, I outsource almost everything that is not one of my strengths.
I use an outsourced bookkeeper and outsourced graphic arts help.
I know I need to work within my strengths.
Running numbers and detailed accounting work are not where I perform best now, even though the background helps.

SIGNET: I have a personal question that I think applies well to the podcast. Hiring people and managing people is really a talent. There is a reason CEOs sometimes manage managers, and managers manage individuals. How do you develop the skills needed to manage people? If you do not do that right, your business suffers and you reach dead ends.

STUART ZALL:

Managing people is a real challenge.
I believe there may be some force or timing that helps you find what you need when you need it.
About a year ago, I hit a wall because sales were down and I was struggling to motivate the team.
Our leasing meetings were not productive, and people, including me, were distracted.
I realized I needed a coach.
I met Steve Benoit from Crafted Consultants through my son and later sat down with him for coffee.
Steve explained a structured process for working with people, and I decided to try it even though it was not cheap.
He has become a meaningful part of the team.
We now have mandatory Monday meetings, with no cell phones, where each agent reviews what they said they would do and whether they got it done.
We also have one-on-one status updates and KPIs.
One KPI is getting one positive Google review per month from each person, which helps the company cast a wider net.
We now track deals by quarter instead of just doing deals without tracking them.
The coaching and structure have been important to our growth.

SIGNET: I asked that because I am managing a construction project in Pebble Beach right now, and you manage subs and contractors. Many people I have interviewed say their success is due to the people they hire. A lot of it is finding the right people with drive, quality, and pride in workmanship. It is hard to find those people because everyone wants to present themselves that way, but not everyone is that person.

STUART ZALL:

A lot of hiring is trial and error.
We now have an onboarding sheet and an interview sheet that lists what we are looking for.
You can also overanalyze hiring.
Right now, we are at capacity and do not have room for more people unless we build up or expand.
I am willing to take a chance on a lot of people.
Many people in the industry probably got their start with me.
In the past, I may not have had the tools to mentor and coach people properly, so I probably lost some talented people.
If you love what you do, it is not work.
I work in some form seven days a week because I am always available and always thinking about how brokers can be more productive.
I do not only think about their productivity in terms of my own income; I want them to succeed.
People are giving me their time and part of their lives, especially when they are young.
Even if someone only stays with me for a year, two years, or three years, I want them to leave with skills that help them succeed elsewhere.
At Arthur Andersen, many good accountants eventually went to work for clients, and the firm saw that as creating a friend at that company.
I see former employees similarly: if they leave and succeed, the relationship may help both of us later.
I do not expect anyone to give me their entire life, but I want their time with us to be productive.

SIGNET: You said you are at capacity. Where do you want to go from here? What is really good now, and what do you want your legacy to be? That is a two-for-one question, but they are different intentions.

STUART ZALL:

I am having a lot of fun and enjoying what is happening.
We are working on projects with the Orlando Magic, which has been very cool.
I have partners outside my company, including Dan Nelson and Neil Berkowitz, who help expand our bandwidth.
I like the arena and sports district space and see it as an area for future growth.
Many arenas are moving back into central business districts, which creates opportunities around live music, sports, restaurants, retail, and event traffic.
Time is precious for people, so projects that combine sports, entertainment, food, and retail can create strong commercial environments.
We do a lot of leasing downtown, in RiNo, and in Cherry Creek, and I want us to continue being a leader in those markets.
Downtown Denver still has a lot of opportunity, despite lingering perceptions from COVID, crime, and 16th Street Mall disruption.
When you lease space and bring in a store or restaurant, you can change a neighborhood for better or worse.
A lease such as Mendocino Farms in Cherry Creek changes the everyday experience of a neighborhood by adding a useful commerce point.
My legacy is not about ego; it is about improving the city or the commercial playground I work in.
Early in my career, I was focused on getting paid, but over time I came to care more about the type of tenant and whether they improve the neighborhood.
A street full of banks may pay rent, but it does not create the same neighborhood energy as coffee shops, restaurants, and places to shop.
The goal is to help create neighborhoods where people feel commerce, culture, and activity.

SIGNET: The tenants really give a neighborhood its feel — the restaurants, bars, and different spots.

STUART ZALL:

The right tenant mix creates a good environment.
When neighborhoods improve through thoughtful retail and restaurant leasing, everyone benefits.

SIGNET: I was listening to another interview you did, and you said 2010 was a hard year after the Great Recession. How did you survive that, and what advice would you give to other people in future recessions?

STUART ZALL:

Praying is real.
If you have your health, you should not let your stock account or money account consume you.
Do not listen to all the background noise.
I do not watch much news because it can become distracting and negative.
In our business, the recession showed up late because commissions often take six months to a year to come in.
2009 was still fine, but in 2010 nothing was coming in.
I tried to get exposure by writing articles and appearing in trade magazines.
A partner and I wrote an article about repositioning malls, and someone from China called asking whether we could do that work there.
Our default answer was yes, even when we had to figure out how to execute afterward.
We needed demographic and psychographic data in China, which was difficult to get, but a colleague connected us with someone who did data work in Asia and had gone to the University of Denver.
We partnered with him, created a merchandising plan, and the client then asked whether we could lease the project.
The project was in Xi’an, which was connected to the Terracotta Warriors and the Silk Road.
I used my U.S. relationships with brands to find the right international contacts and started leasing the project.
I worked between China and Denver, using a Wi-Fi phone line with a Denver number so clients did not know I was overseas.
The project was ultimately scrapped because housing became more lucrative for the developer, but we had been paid in advance.
By the time that project ended, the U.S. economy had improved.
That experience helped us survive and led to work in places such as Puerto Rico and Hawaii.

SIGNET: I do residential in Europe, but it is interesting because that is another market. Even here, RiNo and Cherry Creek feel like different markets because the tenants are different. You deal with a lot of high-end, popular, and trendy tenants.

STUART ZALL:

I would not call most of our work true luxury, like Gucci or Hermès, because Denver is not a very luxury-heavy market.
We work more with upper-moderate and emerging brands.
That includes brands like Lululemon, North Face, Birkenstock, and other better brands.
I also love working with immigrants because many of them are fearless.
Some people create businesses because they may not have the same access to conventional jobs, and they are willing to take chances.
Those chances sometimes turn into great businesses.
I have worked with clients from one store to very large store counts, and it is rewarding to watch a brand grow.
It is interesting and fun to see a person or brand evolve from one location into something much larger.

SIGNET: That is part of their story. I think you did that with H&M, where you had the first one in Colorado.

STUART ZALL:

We did the first H&M in Colorado.
H&M has withstood the stress of downtown.
We also brought Uniqlo to downtown Denver, although it unfortunately closed during COVID.
Forever 21 was another example.
No brand lasts forever, but if you can get 15 years or more out of a brand, that can still be meaningful.

SIGNET: Thinking about the 16th Street Mall, coming from Los Angeles, what is the secret? In LA, it is very hard to turn around cities, maybe because of bureaucracy or something else. Here, you have the Downtown Denver Partnership and developers working with political bodies. What is the secret to turning around a place like that?

STUART ZALL:

Comparing Los Angeles and Denver is difficult because Los Angeles County is massive and harder to move.
Denver is smaller and more nimble.
Denver has a lot of downtown history.
Union Station was critical to Denver’s growth and connects directly to the 16th Street Mall.
The redevelopment of Union Station was a beautiful project.
Historically, the railroad helped Denver grow because the rail route came through Denver instead of elsewhere.
Larimer Street and downtown Denver developed around rail traffic, travelers, and the commerce they needed.
Denver has historic assets, including Larimer Square and older buildings, that give it a character beyond steel, brick, and glass.
The city has serious struggles, including high minimum wages and permitting timelines, but there are good people who believe in downtown.
With the 16th Street Mall work completed or nearing completion, I expect to see more positive activity in the next couple of years.

SIGNET: It is a great area. I lived near Union Station and would jog through 16th Street. That area has completely changed, with Whole Foods, the train, and a safer environment.

STUART ZALL:

During COVID, Denver dropped its guard and got hit on multiple levels.
The trend is now improving.
Some older office buildings may be converted to residential if conversion is feasible.
There is still a need for housing, even if apartment rents are currently soft.
I expect the need for apartments to continue as the city grows.

SIGNET: Prices have come up a lot since then too.

STUART ZALL:

Prices have come up, and interest rates are another obstacle.
Every generation has something that gets in the way.
I often hear people say something is too expensive and that they will wait for prices to come down.
In the long run, saving a relatively small amount on price may matter less when amortized over decades.

SIGNET: I once heard that it is not timing the market, it is time in the market. It is the same principle.

STUART ZALL:

Jordan Perlmutter once told me that some real estate projects succeed because of timing.
Even if you do not time it perfectly, real estate is a long game.
It is like golf: people focus on individual shots, but real estate has waves.
There are periods when you can make a lot of money quickly, but overall you need a long-term view.
If you take the long view, you have a better chance of being successful.

SIGNET: It seems like that is also what you do with your investments. Originally, the name of this podcast was “The Long-Term Real Estate Investor,” because thinking long term removes some of the pressure around things like IRR calculations. If you have a 100-year business plan, it changes the mentality. I feel that in your investing and leasing, it is always long term, and there are also a lot of transaction costs in trying to flip.

STUART ZALL:

In commercial real estate, long-term thinking is important.
Because I did not come from a real estate family, I had to start by planting seeds myself.
It would have been nice to walk into an existing forest, but I had to begin building it over time.

SIGNET: It is tricky too, because when you are starting out, how are you going to buy something without financing? A lot of times the long-term plan is to get rid of financing so you have more stability and the bumps in the road are not as dramatic. Let me ask you the wrap-up questions. What was the number-one deal that changed your career, taught you the most, or had the most impact on you?

STUART ZALL:

The most important turning point was not really a deal; it was going to work for the Taubman Company.
That job was transformational because it taught me how to lease not just to fill space, but to create neighborhoods.
When I was about 27, I met a friend at a restaurant called Fresh Choice, saw a huge line, and asked about the owner.
I had just taken a job involving two malls, and within about 30 days I made two deals with that restaurant operator.
That happened because I asked a question when the opportunity was right in front of me.
Sometimes you are on the one-yard line and only need to ask the question.
Over my career, I did several deals with that operator, so that became an important relationship and an important early lesson.

SIGNET: What are your three key daily habits that have made you successful? I am always curious what time people wake up, whether they meditate, read a certain newspaper, or spend family time.

STUART ZALL:

I do not read a newspaper.
I get up early, usually around five.
My most productive time is between about five and eight in the morning.
I try to filter out negative noise because there is always a lot of it.
I would tell people not to listen to all the noise that is designed to stop them.
I try to stay positive.
I meditate for about ten minutes almost every day.
I use paper and pencil to write things down, even with all the CRMs and technology available.
I try to be thankful.
I remind myself that there are many opportunities available and that people do not need to stay stuck.
I try to wake up with a smile and a mindset of taking on the world, even if some days are harder by the end.

SIGNET: Final question: what would you say to a young individual who wanted to start in the real estate business? They might not know whether they want to be a broker, investor, or what segment to focus on. How would they find their path?

STUART ZALL:

I would tell them not to be afraid.
If they need to live at their parents’ house or drive Uber while getting started, they should do what they need to do.
They should absorb as much information as possible.
There is so much information available now that they do not even have to subscribe to everything to learn.
They should become an expert at something and become the go-to person in that area.
They should not try to do everything.
They should find one area and try to be the best at it.
They need passion for the business.
If they think of it only as a job, they are in the wrong business.
It is always a good time to get into real estate, and bad times can actually be the best times to start.

SIGNET: Stuart, thank you so much. We could do round two another time. Thank you for joining the podcast, and hopefully we will grab dinner soon.

STUART ZALL:

I hope so.

INTERVIEWER — SPEAKER UNCERTAIN: Bonus question: what are your thoughts about the new Burnham Yard deal and what it is going to do for downtown?

STUART ZALL:

I do not know exactly how it will affect downtown, but I think it will be very positive for Burnham Yard.
Burnham Yard feels like one of the last major pieces of Denver that has not really been developed.
A key question is what happens to the area where the stadium is now if activity shifts.
I think the project will not hurt downtown because people will still come downtown, and the distance may not be dramatically different.
Large investments, such as a multibillion-dollar stadium, create a multiplier effect that benefits many people.
I do worry about displacement, especially for people who currently live nearby and may have cheaper rent.
Growth can be positive, but people still need places to live.
Denver has done some work around affordable housing, but development can still affect neighborhoods.
I think developers and stakeholders need to think carefully about who is affected.
Overall, I think the project is good, but I hope there is thoughtful attention to housing and displacement.

00:00:48:12 – 00:01:06:12
SIGNET
Okay, Stuart, thanks for, thanks for coming. I have so much to ask you. I want to sort of introduce you as the broker and the landlord in the Denver market. Although you do brokerage and properties everywhere. So you had a deal in China.

00:01:06:14 – 00:01:14:00
SIGNET
You worked on a while ago. So you have quite a amount of experience that do you want to say a little bit

00:01:14:02 – 00:01:16:05
SIGNET
about yourself or introduce yourself a little bit?

00:01:16:08 – 00:01:40:01
STUART ZALL
Yeah. I, Stuart’s all founder of this all company which founded back in 2000. I can give you a little bit of my career path. I didn’t grow up thinking I would get into real estate. And I don’t come from a family of multi-generational real estate family. I, got a job. I got my degree at our, University of Denver.

00:01:40:03 – 00:01:49:14
STUART ZALL
In accounting. And, and my first job was with Arthur Henderson. Oh, wow. Which is the, I guess, the grandfather of Accenture. They don’t exist.

00:01:49:14 – 00:01:51:02
STUART ZALL
Anymore.

00:01:51:04 – 00:02:12:13
STUART ZALL
I, I got my CPA, made my mother very happy, and I lasted a year. I got fired for falling asleep on an audit. So, my accounting career didn’t start off too well. I think because as all good real estate people, you have to have ADHD. So I probably had undiagnosed ADHD. That does not go well being an accountant.

00:02:12:15 – 00:02:34:04
STUART ZALL
And, so I, didn’t know what I was going to do. So I ended up, but I ended up working for a guy who said, hey, can you help me do some accounting? Building a little strip center. Got him. Steve Gettleman still active here. And so I started doing some accounting for him. I think he quickly realized that wasn’t my strong suit.

00:02:34:06 – 00:02:39:13
STUART ZALL
He said, hey, would you mind helping me at least this this center, I go, I don’t know what to do, but he goes,

00:02:39:13 – 00:02:41:21
STUART ZALL
here, take a phone book and just start calling people.

00:02:41:23 – 00:02:57:10
STUART ZALL
And that’s what I did. And while dialing for dollars, we called it back in the day before technology existed or that new technology. And, I started getting some really good results, sort of listening to some of his properties from there.

00:02:57:12 – 00:03:18:11
STUART ZALL
I ended up working. I got a job working for Lakeside Mall, which is out on 44th and I-70, one of the first malls in the, in the Denver metro area. And, that kind of imploded on me, but I stood up and ultimately got a job with the Taubman Company, and they moved me to San Francisco.

00:03:18:11 – 00:03:36:18
STUART ZALL
And that’s really where I learned the art of leasing and merchandizing. That was back in 1989, and I was with Tottenham for about seven years, and then that or maybe five years. And then I ended up working for a guy named Courtney Lawyer, and we started building out of the malls all over the country, mills type mall.

00:03:36:19 – 00:04:03:19
STUART ZALL
So like car mills, we did one in Arizona. Oh, wow. Good one in Detroit. And, really learned not only the art of merchandizing, but but also the relationships of these tenants. Because you’re going to do multiple deals with them around the country. And so then in 2000, our firm was actually bought by Taubman. And I was at a, decision point.

00:04:03:21 – 00:04:19:00
STUART ZALL
Do I move to Detroit with Taubman and take a job as a beauty? They would pay so that I could also move to San Francisco. It was. I guess I left out that I moved back to Denver night. Right. And then, or start my own business. And

00:04:19:02 – 00:04:22:04
STUART ZALL
I said, you know what? 39 years old, three kids.

00:04:22:06 – 00:04:23:16
STUART ZALL
Why don’t I just start my own business?

00:04:23:16 – 00:04:27:16
STUART ZALL
It was really smart business plan, which was get one pay.

00:04:27:17 – 00:04:28:01
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:04:28:01 – 00:04:53:05
STUART ZALL
And I ended up getting five things. And I was so busy in the beginning, I couldn’t get my head on straight. And I initially started the firm. I was a hired gun. Right. Basically, you wanted to, you had a lifestyle center. You had an outlet center. You needed some more manpower. You could hire me. And so I did projects from Florida to California and, slowly, people sort of I didn’t have a it my business plan.

00:04:53:05 – 00:05:04:00
STUART ZALL
I said find one thing. Client. So build a brokerage firm. Yeah. And and over time people would say, hey, I want to get into real estate and like, you know, if you want to hang out with me, I’ll teach you everything I know.

00:05:04:01 – 00:05:06:12
STUART ZALL
Yeah. And,

00:05:06:14 – 00:05:29:16
STUART ZALL
And slowly we built the company. And so along the way we bought properties when the opportunities existed. Didn’t have quite the capital. Some other people had, but was able to partner, with, the different groups so that I could. Because I really feel if you’re going to be successful in brokerage, you need to have, some sort of investment in commercial real estate.

00:05:29:16 – 00:05:31:03
STUART ZALL
That’s really difficult

00:05:31:05 – 00:05:40:21
STUART ZALL
because really young brokers coming out and you have no money. Yeah. And you’re just trying to make ends meet. All sudden someone gives you an opportunity to put 100,000, $200,000. Oh.

00:05:40:21 – 00:05:41:21
SIGNET
My gosh. Yeah. Right,

00:05:41:21 – 00:05:42:06
SIGNET
right.

00:05:42:06 – 00:06:09:01
STUART ZALL
So, so and then, I start. So the firm grew. We had about 4 or 5 brokers working for me, and we were in the tech center, and, my office was on Monaco Street. Okay. It was in a consortium of other like minded real estate people. So I, you know, Alex Tolson and, Rick Miller. And so they kind of took me under their wing.

00:06:09:03 – 00:06:29:21
STUART ZALL
And I was, I was on so I was on a sublease. Right. So I was pitching to being pretty much Class-A office space. And, and in the late 90s, 19 well, in 2000, 2001, 2002, and then all the way up to 2015, I was paying like $1,500 a month to have 20 500ft². And I was I had a pretty good.

00:06:29:21 – 00:06:42:22
STUART ZALL
Well, yeah. And then I noticed the ramp was started, you know, crank up. And I also noticed that everybody work for me, all lived in the north side of town, you know, right out the Highlands. Right. And I said, you know,

00:06:43:00 – 00:06:53:11
STUART ZALL
maybe it’s time I wrote this down, which I really encourage people in your circles. Right? I wrote down find a building in a cool part of town, or growing part of town,

00:06:53:13 – 00:06:59:10
STUART ZALL
or at least half of the space to a, a tenant, which would help subsidize my rent, right?

00:06:59:10 – 00:07:08:10
STUART ZALL
Provide income for me and space for me. And so, through a series of events, we found this building that we’re in now, 2946 Larimer.

00:07:08:12 – 00:07:18:15
STUART ZALL
It was a beat up warehouse. I was so scared when I was 2016 and, I didn’t know what I was doing. I mean, I figured that, it was at all.

00:07:18:15 – 00:07:21:01
STUART ZALL
But I knew one thing I did have, which was a tenant.

00:07:21:01 – 00:07:21:08
STUART ZALL
Me.

00:07:21:14 – 00:07:21:23
SIGNET
Right.

00:07:21:23 – 00:07:45:21
STUART ZALL
So it really helps when you’re a owner occupant. Right. And then I went out with police the other half of the space to a CBD guy who was my tenant for about seven years. And then, now two months broke in a couple years ago. So, it’s been great. And, and the biggest change has been we’ve been able to have a sign out on the street and so people can see saw commercial.

00:07:45:22 – 00:07:46:21
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:07:46:23 – 00:07:52:19
STUART ZALL
Before I was inside an office building. So some guys drive by. I can’t tell you how much business we’ve gotten off of the sign.

00:07:52:19 – 00:07:53:20
SIGNET
That’s incredible.

00:07:53:20 – 00:08:09:22
STUART ZALL
Just yesterday, I got a guy from New York. Was, got a sushi restaurant in Manhattan that he wants to open up in Denver. He says, you know, I’ve been looking for space. I figured, what the heck, I’ll call you guys and we’ll probably gonna make a deal. So it’s. Well, to me, it’s sort of changed it. So we have a storefront.

00:08:09:22 – 00:08:10:10
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:08:10:12 – 00:08:14:02
STUART ZALL
And, it’s been, paradigm shift.

00:08:14:04 – 00:08:30:22
SIGNET
It’s so interesting. I love this area. You know, I’ve been here a few times. I’ve been to the restaurants. I didn’t realize everything’s like, right on this block. It feels like because Barcelona, the restaurant and federal, etc.. I mean, it’s it’s a cool part of town. I was just around the corner. I mean, we’ve had dinner in.

00:08:30:22 – 00:08:35:14
STUART ZALL
Groups like around 1016 when I moved there. Yeah, there was nobody. It was.

00:08:35:14 – 00:08:36:22
SIGNET
How did you know that this.

00:08:36:22 – 00:08:56:01
STUART ZALL
Was, I yeah, sometimes you get lucky, right? So I I’ll tell you, I had a friend from New York who actually lives here. Now, Stephanie Rubenstein was repping, kidneys, which was a the founder of Lululemon wanted to do this concept that was focusing on for the millennial, worker. This was pre-COVID. Yeah. She

00:08:56:01 – 00:08:59:10
STUART ZALL
was finding the the roughest, you know, grittiest part of town.

00:08:59:10 – 00:09:01:08
STUART ZALL
That’s where he wants to open sourced.

00:09:01:10 – 00:09:17:14
STUART ZALL
Right. So, probably like West End in Chicago, you know, but I. Right. Whatever. So I found her this. You know, Larimer Street life doesn’t get any grittier than her. Right? So the Denver Central Market wasn’t open. Nothing was on that. There was, Ratio Brewery. It was here. That was about it.

00:09:17:17 – 00:09:18:09
SIGNET
Okay.

00:09:18:11 – 00:09:36:00
STUART ZALL
You walk down the street, there was homeless people. It was just, oh, my God, this is Brooklyn. I go, I don’t know, I don’t have your eyes. I don’t know what you see, but you live in Brooklyn. So you tell me it’s Brooklyn, right? And so I made it a quest to find a building here. And, you know, we got really lucky.

00:09:36:01 – 00:09:48:14
STUART ZALL
We literally got, I believe, the best block, you know, the best block in Larimer Street. Last location in in Reno. And and but when I, when I bought the building, I wouldn’t tell my wife where it was for freight.

00:09:48:14 – 00:09:50:03
SIGNET
You know. Yeah, yeah.

00:09:50:03 – 00:10:04:17
STUART ZALL
And, I remember when we first moved in here, the people across the alley put, a mattress out to throw out, and we were taking bets. How soon would a homeless family. Yeah. The mattress. It was about 30 minutes.

00:10:04:19 – 00:10:05:07
STUART ZALL
Wow.

00:10:05:07 – 00:10:06:04
STUART ZALL
That’s that.

00:10:06:06 – 00:10:07:16
SIGNET
Did you in the van?

00:10:07:18 – 00:10:23:17
STUART ZALL
I know, I thought it was going to be 45. Well, okay, but I didn’t look at that. But that’s how bad it was. And and it’s still, you know, it’s a city and it still has its, its challenges. But, it’s been great. And everyone’s like, oh, you’re so smart, you know, how did you know? Yeah, I didn’t know.

00:10:23:17 – 00:10:25:18
STUART ZALL
I was just lucky. And that’s one, you

00:10:25:18 – 00:10:33:02
STUART ZALL
know, if I had to give anybody who’s listening advice don’t overanalyze real estate. Sometimes you just have to find it. And pray.

00:10:33:04 – 00:10:33:10
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:10:33:14 – 00:10:41:13
STUART ZALL
When real estate time is your best friend. And so this building which I paid over $8 million in 2016.

00:10:41:15 – 00:10:41:21
SIGNET
In.

00:10:42:01 – 00:10:54:02
STUART ZALL
2000. Now the building wasn’t built. That was Marble Warehouse. You. I saw an appraisal in 2000. The building appraised for 196,000. Well, you know, today it’s probably worth somewhere between 4 and $5 million.

00:10:54:02 – 00:10:54:23
STUART ZALL
Wow. Wow.

00:10:54:23 – 00:11:16:18
STUART ZALL
So that’s. I do think that sometimes, you know, it’s scary. You know, you’re putting your life on the risk, your life at risk when you’re buying something. But sometimes, you know, what does it say? I can’t think of that line. Some favors the ball. You know, by taking risks. Yeah, I was involved, you know, in that new,

00:11:16:20 – 00:11:32:00
STUART ZALL
Take a chance. Yeah. And if you especially if you’re young, you’re young, if you if you, strike out this way, you can still come up to the play to God. So the beauty of America is at a fortune, you know? So you you know, if you’re young, you’re much like, oh, my God, yeah, lose everything. But guess what?

00:11:32:00 – 00:11:34:03
STUART ZALL
You just graduated college. You have nothing, right? Know?

00:11:34:04 – 00:11:54:13
SIGNET
So yeah. No, it’s. You can take more risks there. I mean, you hit on so many points that I want, you know, that I want to talk about, you know, mentorship is one because first, I think that you talk about your mentors a little bit and the values that you learned in your training with Taubman. I think you also are a huge I mean, in some ways, you’ve been a mentor for me here in Denver.

00:11:54:15 – 00:12:08:03
SIGNET
You’ve mentored. I’ve met so many people that you’ve mentored that have become incredibly successful. How do you what do you look for in people that are the qualities to lead someone to success?

00:12:08:05 – 00:12:10:04
STUART ZALL
Really good question, Eduardo,

00:12:10:05 – 00:12:16:22
STUART ZALL
I think it starts with your heart. Right? If you have passion for what you’re doing, then it’s not work.

00:12:17:00 – 00:12:17:16
SIGNET
Right?

00:12:17:18 – 00:12:35:06
STUART ZALL
It’s it’s, It’s in your blood. I say it is your shoes, right? If you if you if you have a drive, if you’re not getting into real estate as well. I tried everything else in real estate. It’s my, you know, choice, you know, last resort. Yeah. I would say that.

00:12:35:08 – 00:12:38:06
STUART ZALL
The key is you got to have drive and you have to have passion.

00:12:38:06 – 00:12:40:11
STUART ZALL
You got to be a dreamer. So that’s the first.

00:12:40:13 – 00:13:00:11
STUART ZALL
What I, what I like to do and I feel like probably this younger generation is so lost from this is everybody text. Everybody’s on Instagram. Everybody is communicating. That’s being efficient. But nobody is sitting in front of each other and not nobody. But the amount of times people are actually just having coffee and communicating, face to face.

00:13:00:11 – 00:13:18:05
STUART ZALL
Right. Is is it’s almost nonexistent. Right? A joke when I first got into business, if somebody was interested in the space, right to go and say, oh, let me see a picture of the space. So you literally run out to the mall or the strip center, whatever. Take a picture a couple days, you get the picture back, right?

00:13:18:05 – 00:13:31:20
STUART ZALL
Yeah. Like a photo. That. And then there was a Fedex. You had a mail it. And so the whole process probably took a week before somebody out of town could see your space. Right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Proper pictures. And they were back. The ground.

00:13:31:20 – 00:13:33:20
STUART ZALL
Was. And then you know then.

00:13:33:20 – 00:13:49:00
STUART ZALL
They would say okay I’m not interested. That’s right. Yeah. You know maybe they would be interested. But you had dialog and it was a process. And today it’s like oh I see your space. Okay. Great. Let me go. You know, email to you within seconds while I’m on the phone with you. I can go through it and, you know, know.

00:13:49:02 – 00:13:49:09
STUART ZALL
Right.

00:13:49:10 – 00:13:49:20
SIGNET
Right.

00:13:50:01 – 00:14:11:23
STUART ZALL
Right. Okay. I don’t really like the time stamps. So when you start with networking, right, the first stage of meeting somebody, you’re building a relationship. And so if you build a relationship with somebody, which is why I try to we do these breakfasts. Yeah I just if anybody an opportunity to meet anybody who can help advance their career.

00:14:12:03 – 00:14:12:21
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:14:12:23 – 00:14:19:22
STUART ZALL
I like to create that platform. That to me is and then like the throw everybody into the put all the rats into the.

00:14:19:22 – 00:14:20:17
SIGNET
Rat race.

00:14:20:17 – 00:14:26:00
STUART ZALL
In the box. See what will happen. Right. And as long as I would say to like people work for me, it’s

00:14:26:00 – 00:14:30:10
STUART ZALL
like, hey, if you want to be eaten by a shark. Yeah, the best places to be in a shark tank,

00:14:30:12 – 00:14:38:05
STUART ZALL
right? Like, you know, shark infested waters. A much better chance of getting eaten by a shark there than you’re going to get eaten than, say, a pond, right?

00:14:38:05 – 00:14:38:15
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:14:38:15 – 00:14:57:06
STUART ZALL
And so that’s the same, that metaphor of real estate. Like, if you want to make deals. That’s why I encourage people to go to the shopping center conventions. And you like go to where people are going to be able to make decisions are going to be there. Yeah. And then but don’t just hang around with the same people and go out and support everybody.

00:14:57:08 – 00:15:06:10
STUART ZALL
Everyone you can meet try to go meet 50 people, you know, somebody is going to there’s going to be somebody there who’s going to help you foster your career, make a deal.

00:15:06:12 – 00:15:06:21
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:15:06:21 – 00:15:12:11
STUART ZALL
And then follow through. Right. Like Or maybe it’s digital form.

00:15:12:16 – 00:15:12:22
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:15:13:04 – 00:15:20:23
STUART ZALL
But just communicate with them. Overcommunicate. With them you know drive them crazy like you know if you find. Yeah interesting

00:15:21:00 – 00:15:30:04
STUART ZALL
I can’t tell you that. Okay. The number of deals that we’ve made over the years, we started with just a cup of coffee or a handshake or bumping into somebody.

00:15:30:06 – 00:15:53:09
SIGNET
Yeah, I mean, that’s I love the idea of, you know, a lot of people network within their own also category developers or developers, brokers a lot of times with brokers, you know, I’ve looked at different finance, galas that are capital has got to I mean, they raise money for for loans maybe for real estate. But it’s interesting because you get more exposure to that stuff.

00:15:53:11 – 00:16:05:03
SIGNET
You make links together. And. Yeah, I mean, one thing I’ve heard you say before is you never know when where a deal is going to take you. A word deal comes from that. It’s just you being there, I think is what you’re saying. Is that one of the.

00:16:05:08 – 00:16:18:02
STUART ZALL
Other you know, you brought up a good point, and I think I learned this when I was doing business in China. Like, if you’re in a room and everybody speaks English, but you’re not, you know, you’re not as valuable.

00:16:18:04 – 00:16:18:21
SIGNET
Right? Right.

00:16:18:21 – 00:16:33:05
STUART ZALL
Because everybody’s and I use that metaphor for if I’m in a room with everybody who’s real estate brokers, right. Everybody knows how to reach that space. We’re all experts, right? Nobody’s going to look. I mean, of course they can learn from each other, but maybe there you go. On. Allowed.

00:16:33:07 – 00:16:34:00
SIGNET
Right. But.

00:16:34:01 – 00:17:03:08
STUART ZALL
Right. If I’m in a room and nobody speaks what I do, then I’m extremely valuable, right? Tell them how to lose their space. Right. And so when I’m looking to network, I look at life, look at it, hopefully get a group of together. But, like, I like the prizes. This giant cow. Right. Okay, here’s this cow. Maybe I want the milk from the cow, and maybe, you know, somebody else wants the tender tenderloin.

00:17:03:10 – 00:17:07:01
STUART ZALL
But if we’re all going after the cow cooperative.

00:17:07:03 – 00:17:07:19
SIGNET
Right.

00:17:07:21 – 00:17:19:13
STUART ZALL
We can bring the cow down or what do we ever have? Right. And then you may maybe you’re the guy who brought the countdown, but I just, I just don’t get that. But I need the book. Right, right. I need the tongue.

00:17:19:15 – 00:17:20:09
SIGNET
Right.

00:17:20:11 – 00:17:21:22
STUART ZALL
So that’s why when we network

00:17:21:22 – 00:17:31:06
STUART ZALL
we like to work with contractors. We like to work with architects. We like to work with finance people. A lot of times people who I’m not in real estate, I’m like, yeah, but you probably know something.

00:17:31:08 – 00:17:32:01
SIGNET
Right?

00:17:32:03 – 00:17:45:10
STUART ZALL
Much more valuable, right? If I’m pitching somebody who isn’t in my space and, you know, I don’t bread right. And so that’s part of my sort of philosophy is like, let’s collaborate.

00:17:45:12 – 00:17:45:21
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:17:46:02 – 00:18:03:20
STUART ZALL
Yeah. So I can’t tell you the number of, you know, general contractors, you know, and I’m not looking for anything. You know, some people like, oh, from your phone. Right. You know, just pay it forward. Right. So, I’ll call it general contractors. I’ll be like, hey, here’s for ten guys that are coming into town. Maybe you should make.

00:18:03:22 – 00:18:09:09
STUART ZALL
Yeah, right. Well, that helps them. They’re gonna help me one way or another. I’m not sitting there with.

00:18:09:10 – 00:18:10:08
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:18:10:10 – 00:18:27:16
STUART ZALL
Checklist of, you know. Oh, gee, I gave you this one. Wait. Most of the leads, they’ve never. And it’s kind of funny because, one contractor particularly, I probably give them 5 or 6 restaurants, mostly out of California. They couldn’t even spell their name before they came to town. And then. Yeah, sure, it’s like, oh, we built out right, right.

00:18:27:18 – 00:18:32:06
STUART ZALL
This restaurant that. Yeah, that’s like, yeah, well, you know who got you there, but.

00:18:32:06 – 00:18:32:23
SIGNET
Yeah, yeah.

00:18:32:23 – 00:18:39:09
STUART ZALL
So call me and say, hey, we got this new client, need some representation. So,

00:18:39:11 – 00:18:41:00
SIGNET
Right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

00:18:41:02 – 00:18:45:12
STUART ZALL
Relationship building network. So I think when you went back earlier, how would I mentor people?

00:18:45:14 – 00:18:49:15
STUART ZALL
Like, like you sit there and tell people, okay, you got to do this. This. And this was really the

00:18:49:15 – 00:18:51:18
STUART ZALL
best thing is to go out and network

00:18:51:20 – 00:19:01:15
STUART ZALL
and socialize and talk to people, you know, and find out what they’re doing, what can you learn from them, or go to, events

00:19:01:17 – 00:19:02:23
STUART ZALL
I’ll tell you a good story, actually.

00:19:03:00 – 00:19:26:19
STUART ZALL
So the, founder of Shake Shack, this guy named Danny. No. So he opened up literally right after I did. Oh, okay. So across the street. So I noticed the the Colorado Restaurant Association and, and Danny Meyer was speaking. Okay. At the end. He was probably worth $1 billion. He opened up Union Hospitality in New York. I mean, the number of restaurants would be up.

00:19:26:19 – 00:19:49:10
STUART ZALL
Okay. But Shake Shack has been a home run for it. And so it was like 25 bucks. You could hear Danny Meyer speak. Yeah. For $150, you can get a signed, autographed book for Danny Meyer. This is Denver. We’re not talking to you. Yeah. So how many people is that going to cough up right. And people. Oh, I know I pay $250.

00:19:49:10 – 00:20:05:00
STUART ZALL
I got him to sign the book, and now I consider my personal contact was that I could call him. Right now I’m on the phone, and you know, immediately he was, you know, it’s like, oh, I was on that wrong answer. Congratulations on opening up across the street from me. Just, I was there at ten in the morning.

00:20:05:01 – 00:20:23:15
STUART ZALL
There’s nobody there. We really screwed up on that. Ten in the morning? Yeah. Wakes up in Reno. Doesn’t even start 11. Yeah, and so I sent a whole bunch of information, and the story goes very well. And he was very grateful. And there’s been many times when I’ve needed to, to, connect with him. I don’t know if you use it, but.

00:20:23:15 – 00:20:40:01
STUART ZALL
Yeah, I mean, for $150, I have access to Danny Meyer, and those are the things you have to do. But, you know, you’re, you know, if you’re just sitting in the audience, you’re not going to get to know him. But also when somebody’s speaking, most of these things are pretty small. You can just go to the front right and introduce yourself.

00:20:40:03 – 00:20:42:22
STUART ZALL
You just never know. You know what connection to convey.

00:20:43:00 – 00:21:02:05
SIGNET
Yeah. I mean, so you talked about a little bit about win win situations where people, you know, one thing you’ve said before is that you and I love seeing this because I’ve seen you do it is you have people that you represent, tenants that you represent, your own tenants and people that you know are your clients. You want them to win.

00:21:02:05 – 00:21:18:15
SIGNET
And I’ve heard you say that after the lease is signed and commission all that, that’s when you start to work. You know a lot with them in helping to promote them because it is win win. They expand. They’re going to call you. What do you do after you know the lease is signed? Because they have there’s so much to do for so.

00:21:18:16 – 00:21:33:21
STUART ZALL
So. Okay, so you could go down a rabbit hole, right? Yeah. Not like your clients, admin staff and solving all problems, but it is important to check in, right? So I always, for myself personally or my brokers is like,

00:21:33:23 – 00:21:35:16
STUART ZALL
look, don’t go looking for trouble.

00:21:35:20 – 00:21:43:10
STUART ZALL
Because clients will, you know, you’ll become their outsource, right? But but if you can help them, if there’s problems.

00:21:43:10 – 00:22:03:02
STUART ZALL
First of all, you got to start with good people, right? So, somebody needs a liquor license. There’s a couple, liquor, attorneys. Right. They’re really good in town. Sometimes you want to go to cheaper. I’m like, you know what, right? The extra $2,000 go with this firm because they’re going to, they’re going to get it done.

00:22:03:02 – 00:22:21:21
STUART ZALL
Yeah. And you don’t have, you know, time is money, right? So I try to guide them to the best of the best that we have personal experience with. Right. If somebody asks for a referral and I always try to give them 1 or 2 at least, right, three. Right. Because you don’t need to come back and say, oh, you told me ABC contractor was the past.

00:22:21:21 – 00:22:25:13
STUART ZALL
Well, I had a problem with them. Now, here are three really good contractors.

00:22:25:15 – 00:22:29:05
STUART ZALL
You need to do your homework and find out who you think is the best.

00:22:29:07 – 00:22:31:16
STUART ZALL
But I’m going to tell you, all these guys are tried and true.

00:22:31:18 – 00:22:32:13
SIGNET
Right.

00:22:32:15 – 00:22:56:05
STUART ZALL
And, and and then to help them solve problems when they run into issues. But so and those are usually usually just getting the store. That’s right after the store’s open. There’s not right. I can’t solve their problems of that labor issues or right. You know, I mean, I might know somebody who’s good at marketing to help, you know, build their, their brand, but there’s not a lot we can do.

00:22:56:05 – 00:23:00:12
STUART ZALL
But but always pick up the phone, always be there. I mean, it’s a.

00:23:00:14 – 00:23:01:04
SIGNET
Right even.

00:23:01:04 – 00:23:16:15
STUART ZALL
On the list. Eduardo. So like when you think about, like, if you’re buying a building of the five, $10 million, that’s a huge purchase, right? Yeah. When you’re signing a lease, somebody is making a commitment for maybe $3 million, $4 million, ten year lease, right?

00:23:16:17 – 00:23:17:10
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:23:17:12 – 00:23:35:21
STUART ZALL
You want them to be successful and then you can help them. The it’s the best. Yeah. I had this tape. Quick story. So a guy calls me off our side and I’m working for a landlord now. So, you know, if I work for the landlord, I can, you know, that’s to my, my, fiduciary position, right? Right.

00:23:35:23 – 00:23:55:01
STUART ZALL
So Skype calls me up. He wants to open up this hamburger joint out of L.A. I never even heard of it, but he’s getting a franchising. Like, who’s got the franchise in place? I never even heard of him. Why would you just do it on your own franchise? And he wants to be in, this building, the hub down.

00:23:55:03 – 00:24:05:06
STUART ZALL
Say, okay. Down in, down in right now. And I’m sitting there myself saying, you know, you’re 55 years old, you know, nobody’s going into the restaurant business for the first time in your.

00:24:05:06 – 00:24:06:05
SIGNET
Life, right?

00:24:06:07 – 00:24:10:23
STUART ZALL
This is not, yeah, you’re going to this isn’t going to bode well.

00:24:10:23 – 00:24:11:16
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:24:11:18 – 00:24:24:19
STUART ZALL
In my one side of me, on the other side, it’s like, well, I, I work for this landlord. I need to make the deals. Right. I made the deal with them. And, you know, you opened up right smack in the middle of Covid. No. Well.

00:24:24:21 – 00:24:25:14
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:24:25:16 – 00:24:29:04
STUART ZALL
And then, you know, it just went from trouble to trouble.

00:24:29:05 – 00:24:30:00
STUART ZALL
But, you know, we.

00:24:30:00 – 00:24:48:21
STUART ZALL
Went in and help helped him, even though I didn’t have to. Right down. But we went in and helped renegotiate his his terms, you know, so check in with them, see how he’s doing. A lot of brokers, a lot of salespeople are like, you know, slam bam and goodbye. Yeah. Thanks. I’m made by commission. I’m out of there.

00:24:48:23 – 00:24:58:03
STUART ZALL
We want we want continuity. We want to be able to do, more business with people and, at a minimum, we don’t want them to say bad things, so.

00:24:58:03 – 00:24:59:05
SIGNET
Right, right, right.

00:24:59:06 – 00:25:08:13
STUART ZALL
But we always try to be there to help people solve problems. I mean, that’s that’s really what we are doing is we’re problem solvers.

00:25:08:15 – 00:25:23:17
SIGNET
Yeah. I mean, I love the way your brain thinks. You’re very creative. Just taking a maybe a wider angle point of view. Why commercial versus residential? I mean, I love commercial, but I’m just curious what your, Why why that path?

00:25:23:23 – 00:25:27:08
STUART ZALL
Well, triple net leases.

00:25:27:10 – 00:25:28:10
SIGNET
Yeah. That’s.

00:25:28:12 – 00:25:48:20
STUART ZALL
You know, when I, when I was working at Arthur Andersen when I first started, Denver and this was late 80s Denver was the joke was the last one to leave Denver, turn off the lights. And a partner and I and partner Biden and I were, buying up condos from the RTD. I bought a studio condo for $8,000.

00:25:48:20 – 00:26:09:12
STUART ZALL
I mean, it sounds really cheap, but nobody would touch them, that’s all. Yeah. You could you could buy whatever you wanted with your ten. No money down there. Just want banks. Want them off the books. Right. So at one point I had 50 condos with the partner, and technology hadn’t been there yet. So, I mean, literally had to go to the bank to make the deposits.

00:26:09:12 – 00:26:14:09
STUART ZALL
I couldn’t scan them in or, you know, and it was a it was a brand damaging. And it’s.

00:26:14:09 – 00:26:15:05
SIGNET
Really. Yeah.

00:26:15:09 – 00:26:42:08
STUART ZALL
And so I don’t I don’t have the patience for residential. I, you know, I, it’s just a different animal and, and so with commercial, I’m really fascinated by the businesses and, and retail and just to, to it’s like night and day. It’s just not the path. I’m pretty much sold most of my residential properties and put them into commercial projects because you’re just dealing with different.

00:26:42:13 – 00:26:57:22
STUART ZALL
Yeah. So also, you know, if if something doesn’t work out for a guy who has 50 stores, this wasn’t like the best one. It’s not going to be the end of the world if something right messed up on their house, that’s like, you know, on Maslow’s hierarchy, right?

00:26:58:00 – 00:26:58:15
SIGNET
Right.

00:26:58:17 – 00:27:00:14
STUART ZALL
Yeah. I just yeah.

00:27:00:16 – 00:27:14:07
SIGNET
Yeah. In commercial real estate, what trends do you think? You know, tariffs with, the, I mean, the internet’s been affecting it for a while, but what trends are you looking out for?

00:27:14:12 – 00:27:33:06
STUART ZALL
You know, I think since the beginning of time, probably go back to, you know, the ancient Greeks and Romans and. Yeah, people have been complaining about what’s going to happen in the retail market with what’s going on. This is, you know, we just got conquered by the Mesopotamians or whatever. Yeah. How are we going to survive? Yeah.

00:27:33:08 – 00:27:46:03
STUART ZALL
Humans, as far as I can tell, always need the commerce, right? One way or another. Right. So. So I think that, there’s going to be, there’s going to be AI,

00:27:46:03 – 00:27:46:16
STUART ZALL
there’s going.

00:27:46:16 – 00:27:47:19
STUART ZALL
To be,

00:27:47:21 – 00:27:55:01
STUART ZALL
Headwinds that we’re going to face. And you just got to pivot and you just sit back and do nothing. Well, then you’re going to be dead.

00:27:55:03 – 00:28:02:09
STUART ZALL
Constantly be looking around the corner. So I think Covid was a great test for, and restaurants

00:28:02:11 – 00:28:06:05
STUART ZALL
like the smart guys were the first ones to go out and do patio seating.

00:28:06:07 – 00:28:25:20
STUART ZALL
Like, you know, the government said, I think we probably only remember was only a couple of years ago, right? Yeah. They came out and said, hey, no, no, only 30 people in a restaurant. We need spacing or whatever and really forced outdoor seating. But the top guys, they were out there doing these patios or with alcohol, right?

00:28:25:20 – 00:28:44:23
STUART ZALL
They were like, on the to go program that they finally let you take alcohol to go. And so I think going forward, I don’t really know exactly. You know, I mean, it seems like a parallel business is changing because you can buy so much. So, you know, on Amazon, but when you’re on vacation, right, what are you going to do?

00:28:45:00 – 00:28:54:09
STUART ZALL
It’s raining today or whatever. I want to go. Yeah, right. It’s a different kind of shopping. So and then they saw figured out how to feed you on the internet, right. So.

00:28:54:09 – 00:28:54:17
SIGNET
Right.

00:28:54:22 – 00:29:12:06
STUART ZALL
Even even if, even if it’s DoorDash picking up the food, it still has to be made somewhere. Right? And I think that ghost kitchens was kind of a bust. Did you guys see people on a drive by, see the sign, see the plays, experience it? We went to, a restaurant. The Alamo opened up in the tech center.

00:29:12:08 – 00:29:22:23
STUART ZALL
Two hour wait. Wow. You know what? I don’t wait to, Yeah, I think so. We’ll just call it out. We called up and in 45 minutes we got it, picked it up. My father still had the same experience.

00:29:22:23 – 00:29:23:08
SIGNET
Right.

00:29:23:09 – 00:29:42:15
STUART ZALL
But I wouldn’t have known, like if I didn’t see love on my right. If it was in some ghost kitchen, I wouldn’t know that. That I should be eating there. So. Right. So I feel like, you know, food and entertainment, apparel still going to be out there, but they’re probably smaller stores, not in the department stores in the process of has to reinvent itself.

00:29:42:17 – 00:29:45:22
STUART ZALL
I don’t know what that. Yeah, exactly. But but the models.

00:29:45:22 – 00:30:10:14
SIGNET
Change, right. So yeah, I’m loving these like public markets you see everywhere. You know, I drove up and down the coast now all the time. And the San Luis Obispo, you know, it’s not a huge city. It’s got two public markets. Santa Barbara is a public market here. The hangar. Yeah. The Edgewater I mean, that’s I love those types of developments because they just have so much synergy together a lot of the time, if they’re done well and I don’t know.

00:30:10:14 – 00:30:12:21
STUART ZALL
Yeah, I mean that that’s a good point.

00:30:12:23 – 00:30:18:18
SIGNET
Like your Colorado Mills. That’s an example of it maybe, you know, 15, 20 years ago.

00:30:18:20 – 00:30:39:17
STUART ZALL
Well I think when you when you look at the public market, you know, Denver’s like the poster child for like jumping on things. Way more than, than other cities. Right. And we way over did the public market. So there were some winners and losers. I think the one on Carnival. Right. The junction of, you know.

00:30:39:17 – 00:30:40:01
SIGNET
No. Yeah.

00:30:40:01 – 00:31:02:13
STUART ZALL
Exactly. Because okay. Yeah I think people’s answer was, oh well let’s just build the food hall right. And everyone will show up and I’ll be great. I mean, I think that you still have to put thought into this like the Denver Central Market. Great. The Edgewater one. Great. Yeah. Great. There was one on Lincoln, I forget what it was called it in Tony’s market.

00:31:02:15 – 00:31:03:14
STUART ZALL
That went out of business.

00:31:03:14 – 00:31:04:13
SIGNET
Right. Okay.

00:31:04:15 – 00:31:05:13
STUART ZALL
It is.

00:31:05:15 – 00:31:13:06
STUART ZALL
So there’s a proliferation of this stuff. But if it’s done right and you’ll be successful, it’s successful.

00:31:13:08 – 00:31:32:14
SIGNET
Okay. Where, your companies come such a long way. First off, I think it’s incredible how you were into you. You were an accountant, and you were. That’s a very type of brain. And then you went into such a relationship heavy business. What qualities did you bring from accounting into your question?

00:31:32:16 – 00:31:56:02
STUART ZALL
Well, I could at least understand the financial statements. Yeah. And accounts receivables and, stuff like that. Very important. Most brokers don’t really understand the mechanics of the business, so that’s a really good quality. I understand that over proper to understand mortgages when it comes to, I outsource almost everything that’s been on the side of a outsourced bookkeeper.

00:31:56:05 – 00:32:10:15
STUART ZALL
Now, I have an outsourced, you know, graphic arts person. I just know I got to work with my strengths. Right? And, you know, I’m not a, you know, person, so when it comes to running numbers and all that does not work very well.

00:32:10:17 – 00:32:32:01
SIGNET
I have a personal question for you, but I think it’ll apply to the podcast. Well, if you’re the right person to ask. And this is the topic, hiring people, managing people, it really is a talent. It’s almost like there’s a reason sometimes why CEOs manage managers and the management manage the individual people. How do you develop what skills you need to manage people?

00:32:32:01 – 00:32:37:20
SIGNET
Because you know, that’s something that if you don’t do right, your business suffers and you reach a lot of dead ends.

00:32:37:22 – 00:32:38:23
STUART ZALL
Yeah.

00:32:38:23 – 00:32:42:21
STUART ZALL
When, you talk about managing people, that is a challenge.

00:32:42:22 – 00:32:58:20
STUART ZALL
Now, I do sometimes I do believe you may say the creator, the hand of God, some force or whatever. I do believe there is something out there that helps you, right? And about a year ago, I hit a wall.

00:32:58:22 – 00:33:20:12
STUART ZALL
We were, you know, running into a little bit of a cycle where sales were down, trying to figure out how do I get how do I motivate my team? What do I do to make a difference? And, yeah, I really was eating away at me because we’d have policing meetings. We’d sit at this table and, and I’d like, literally struggle to get people in and be like, okay, what’s going on?

00:33:20:14 – 00:33:45:12
STUART ZALL
Go through our, our list listings. People were like with their cell phone and do all the things that they weren’t and myself included. Yeah. You know, it wasn’t very productive. I’m like, you know, I just got to find a coach. I got to find somebody, and, I, my son was skiing up in, I was in Winter Park now and doing okay, staying at a place in Frisco.

00:33:45:14 – 00:34:02:02
STUART ZALL
And I went to go see him was in the winter. He lives in New York and I’m hanging out while he’s in the shower or whatever with a bunch of his friends. I sit down, I talk to this guy, Steve Benoit, who, has a company called Crafted Consultants. And I was like, oh, where do you live? Is like Denver, right?

00:34:02:05 – 00:34:04:17
STUART ZALL
Let’s go grab a coffee. Yeah. So I just to meet up, I did.

00:34:04:18 – 00:34:05:12
SIGNET
Yeah, yeah.

00:34:05:12 – 00:34:27:14
STUART ZALL
And so we, we sat for two hours at Rise Over here across. Yeah. Which is, co-working. And he tells me his whole strategy. It’s also got the, the entrepreneurial guy, just the whole, you know, process that that actually, science to this, talking about working with people.

00:34:27:14 – 00:34:27:20
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:34:27:20 – 00:34:31:06
STUART ZALL
Like it wasn’t cheap, but I said, you know what? I want to take a shot.

00:34:31:07 – 00:34:31:19
SIGNET
Yeah, I don’t know.

00:34:31:19 – 00:34:50:01
STUART ZALL
What else to do. So he’s been amazing, but we have, and he’s really part of a team. Our team. And and so, so when we have our meetings now, we, every Monday, they’re front. I do if you get one shot, it’s a mandatory. Yeah. You have to be there, right? I mean, you can look that.

00:34:50:07 – 00:34:50:16
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:34:50:16 – 00:35:07:20
STUART ZALL
And you can zoom in if you have to, but prefer to show up. Right? No cell phones? No. And it only lasts an hour. And in that hour we go through each agent. You know. What did you say you’re going to do. Like what did you do this week. It’s either red or green right. You got it done or sometimes you can’t get certain things done.

00:35:07:20 – 00:35:18:20
STUART ZALL
That’s not right or slacking off. But they didn’t get it done. It gets pushed to the next week. And then we also I have one on one status updates with every agent. We now have KPIs which are you know.

00:35:18:22 – 00:35:22:07
SIGNET
Yeah performance indicators, indicators.

00:35:22:10 – 00:35:23:21
STUART ZALL
Things I can never get the.

00:35:23:23 – 00:35:24:23
SIGNET
Metrics. Yeah.

00:35:24:23 – 00:35:45:08
STUART ZALL
And so one of the things that we which really works well for us is getting Google reviews. Right. So everybody one of our KPIs is you need to get one positive Google review a month. You know, I’ve got ten people here. Yeah, I get ten a month times 12. That’s 120. Well, right now we’re probably at 75 to 80 positive Google reviews.

00:35:45:08 – 00:36:03:00
STUART ZALL
And it works like that stuff. Wow. Yeah. But you know, which is, you know, we’re trying to cast as big of a net as possible, right? So we’re going to get inbound calls outbound. But I mean that people are looking for us. And and so that’s part of it. Also, you know, now we never have track of how many deals we’re doing.

00:36:03:00 – 00:36:04:08
STUART ZALL
A quarter, just like you did your deal.

00:36:04:12 – 00:36:06:19
SIGNET
Right? Right. Right, right.

00:36:06:23 – 00:36:12:06
STUART ZALL
Actually tracking it. And, he’s been a terrible, terrible part to our growth.

00:36:12:11 – 00:36:34:22
SIGNET
That’s interesting. I mean, I asked that question, you know, I’m living most of the time in Pebble Beach right now, managing a construction project. So that’s kind of one of the things you manage subs. You manage a contractor. How do you, you know, just as so many people I’ve talked to, I’ve interviewed, they talk about the people that work for them, with them.

00:36:34:23 – 00:36:57:02
SIGNET
It’s a lot of that their success is due to the people that they hire. I think a lot of it is finding the right people that have the drive, that have the, you know, the want to do better, that don’t want it. They don’t see it as a dollar. They take quality in their workmanship. And sometimes it’s hard to find those people because everybody wants to present like they are that person, but not everybody’s that person.

00:36:57:04 – 00:37:08:12
STUART ZALL
You know, it’s interesting and a lot of it’s trial and error, you know, so have an onboarding sheet. We actually have it. We’ve created a sheet with Steve on when we’re interviewing people. What are the things that we are looking for.

00:37:08:14 – 00:37:14:11
STUART ZALL
And sometimes you can overanalyze it right. Right. If I have right now we’re at capacity. We have no.

00:37:14:13 – 00:37:16:00
STUART ZALL
Room for any more.

00:37:16:02 – 00:37:38:05
STUART ZALL
To go build up or something, but which maybe we do. So I’m willing to take a chance on a lot of people. Right. People in this industry probably got their start with me. And it’s kind of interesting because, when they came on board, I probably didn’t have the tools to really help mentor them and coach them the way I should have.

00:37:38:07 – 00:37:57:05
STUART ZALL
And so I probably lost some talented people over the years, right. Just because I wasn’t set up. But for me, first of all, you know, again, I said early on in this podcast, right. If you love what you do, it’s not work. And so I don’t, I don’t I’m pretty much work seven days a week. Yeah.

00:37:57:07 – 00:38:00:21
STUART ZALL
This work. Yeah. But I’m always available. I always, you know,

00:38:00:21 – 00:38:06:20
STUART ZALL
I think about every broker and how can they how can they be more productive?

00:38:06:22 – 00:38:15:02
STUART ZALL
And it’s kind of funny when I think about it. I don’t think about it. Well, yeah, of course, if they’re more productive, I’m going to make more money. That’s not right. Yeah I want them to be successful.

00:38:15:04 – 00:38:20:06
STUART ZALL
Yeah. You know what they’re giving me is their time and part of their life.

00:38:20:08 – 00:38:20:15
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:38:20:15 – 00:38:41:03
STUART ZALL
Especially at a young age. And so even if they stay with me for a year or 2 or 3, but they learn some skills that help take them to another platform and be successful. Then that’s really important. You know, you asked me what did I bring over from account. Yeah. It sort of sparked the mine Arthur Andersen there.

00:38:41:03 – 00:39:00:03
STUART ZALL
So we say half the time many of the best accountants ended up going to work for their clients. So you know you’re right you know, okay. Well I met so-and-so. My auditor is really right and they’re bringing him over and I, I asked my bosses and you know, isn’t that kind of, you know tough on you guys.

00:39:00:03 – 00:39:05:15
STUART ZALL
You get all this team and then he goes, you know what? If we have a friend at Coca-Cola, that’s great.

00:39:05:17 – 00:39:06:05
SIGNET
Right?

00:39:06:07 – 00:39:31:02
STUART ZALL
And so I look at people who leave. That’s okay. Because I have relationships with, that are only going to help grow their business and my business. So I don’t, you know, I don’t expect somebody to give their life, to me. But the time that they’re here, I hope that it’s the most productive. I’m also always trying to, you know, if I get leads on that, I want to push them out to the brokers.

00:39:31:02 – 00:39:39:20
STUART ZALL
I may fly at 10,000ft, right? That they’re they’re they’re handling I’m okay. Or that, you know, if they run into any walls.

00:39:39:22 – 00:39:53:06
SIGNET
want to know. You know, you said you I capacity. Where do you have past and future question. Where do you want to go from here? That’s, what is really good and what and what do you want your legacy to be?

00:39:53:06 – 00:39:57:22
SIGNET
It’s kind of a two for one, but there are different intention.

00:39:58:00 – 00:40:16:20
STUART ZALL
You know, it’s funny. I’m having so much fun. I’m enjoying what’s going on. We’re working on, a couple of projects with, the Orlando Magic. Oh. So which has been really cool. I do have two other guys got it, Dan Nelson and Neil Berkowitz, that don’t work for me, but work with me as partners.

00:40:16:22 – 00:40:42:08
STUART ZALL
So we’re able to, sort of expand our bandwidth. I really like this. The arena sports area. I feel like that’s one area for future growth, because what’s happening is a lot of the, arenas are moving back into the core CBD central business. Right? Right. And so what ends up happening is you have, like, live music, you have, a pro sports team.

00:40:42:10 – 00:40:57:16
STUART ZALL
So between that two, you have like 100, 128, 200 event, you know. Right. But you have a lot of events going on when the events go on and people are buying stuff right now, I’m coming in, I’m going to have dinner before I go see the nuggets. I’m going to, oh I want to get a jersey.

00:40:57:16 – 00:40:59:23
STUART ZALL
Oh but you know there’s Dragon Ball I you know.

00:40:59:23 – 00:41:01:11
SIGNET
Yeah, yeah yeah.

00:41:01:12 – 00:41:13:05
STUART ZALL
You know what time is so precious right. And so you know, my ability to get more involved in those types of projects, really, really cool.

00:41:13:06 – 00:41:23:08
STUART ZALL
Also trying to, we do a lot of leasing in downtown in Rhino, and Cherry Creek. So to the degree that we can continue to dominate.

00:41:23:10 – 00:41:46:19
STUART ZALL
Those markets, it’s really important for me to be able to be one of the leaders of, of, of, of leasing in both in those areas and downtown. You know, that’s to me is the greatest, secret. You know, people are, you know, still the, the sort of ramifications of Covid and crime and the 16th Street Mall development people just are like, oh, downtown’s bad.

00:41:46:21 – 00:41:48:17
STUART ZALL
Yeah. That’s great.

00:41:48:19 – 00:41:49:08
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:41:49:10 – 00:42:17:03
STUART ZALL
And, you know, it’s had some problems when you go there on the weekend, it is cranking. You know everyone. Oh, let’s go check it out. But there’s no space in church. Yeah. There’s so much opportunity downtown that, it’s kind of neat to be able to, see how we can get people back. So when you said about legacy, I really and I probably when I started working for Tom, I felt it, you know, when you new space.

00:42:17:03 – 00:42:17:11
STUART ZALL
Right.

00:42:17:11 – 00:42:22:03
STUART ZALL
When you bring it store in. You’re actually changing neighborhoods.

00:42:22:03 – 00:42:22:16
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:42:22:16 – 00:42:24:11
STUART ZALL
Oh, yeah. For good or bad.

00:42:24:11 – 00:42:25:04
SIGNET
Right.

00:42:25:05 – 00:42:30:16
STUART ZALL
So we did the lease for Mendocino Farms and Cherry Creek. It’s, you know, I don’t know if, you know, California.

00:42:30:16 – 00:42:31:07
SIGNET
Yeah. Yeah.

00:42:31:11 – 00:42:53:05
STUART ZALL
I mean, they’re killing it, right? Yeah. Everyone’s talking. Oh, this is great. You know, before there wasn’t a place to get, you know, a quick sandwich and salad and things happen, right? Because, yeah, it’s a commerce point. And so I guess, you know, legacy is that, that if maybe people want even know, you know, that. Oh, I was the guy, you know, Covid.

00:42:53:07 – 00:43:11:14
STUART ZALL
Yeah. I brought, H&M to downtown. I know, and it’s not it’s not about my own ego, but it’s like, hey, if whatever city or whatever playground I work in, if we can make it better that everybody wins. Yeah. And that that’s. So when I first started out as a broker, I was just trying to get some money.

00:43:11:14 – 00:43:16:11
STUART ZALL
Right. So anybody had a pulse on at least. Right. Oh, let’s put another bank.

00:43:16:14 – 00:43:17:10
SIGNET
Right. You know.

00:43:17:12 – 00:43:30:04
STUART ZALL
They pay lots of rent. You know, another bank doesn’t it doesn’t change the neighborhood. If you have five banks, you know, on one street, you might get more lollipops or something, but you’re not going to. Right? Like, right. It’s not going.

00:43:30:04 – 00:43:31:15
SIGNET
To do right. Right.

00:43:31:17 – 00:43:38:08
STUART ZALL
But all of a sudden, if you have like five, a coffee shop, a place to eat, a place to shop, awesome. Now it’s like,

00:43:38:08 – 00:43:39:10
STUART ZALL
wow, this is really cool.

00:43:39:13 – 00:43:39:20
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:43:39:21 – 00:43:41:23
STUART ZALL
You’ve created, you know, a neighborhood.

00:43:41:23 – 00:43:46:01
STUART ZALL
This is this is you can change the way people commerce.

00:43:46:04 – 00:43:59:15
SIGNET
Yeah. And the culture of that neighborhood, that’s what it’s so interesting. You go to different areas and the tenants really do give you a feel for it. Even the restaurants, you know, the bars and the different spots.

00:43:59:17 – 00:44:05:17
STUART ZALL
That’s for a good thing. That helps just grow for everybody.

00:44:05:19 – 00:44:22:20
SIGNET
I was I was listening to another interview. You did, and you said that in 2010. It was a hard year after, you know, the Great Recession or depression. How did you survive that? And what what advice would you give to other people in future recessions?

00:44:22:22 – 00:44:33:12
STUART ZALL
Well, praying is real. Yeah. And and, you know, if you have your health, you know, got so worried about your stock account, money account, you know, don’t

00:44:33:18 – 00:44:36:06
STUART ZALL
and don’t listen to all the background noise.

00:44:36:06 – 00:44:45:21
STUART ZALL
Right. Like that is that, you know, you start listening. I don’t even watch the news. Honestly, if the world am blown up today, I probably won’t know for so long.

00:44:45:21 – 00:45:12:02
STUART ZALL
So. Yeah. Yeah. So in 2010, the recession or the meltdown was so late, right? But we didn’t really feel it for ten because, you know, a lot of our commissions, it takes like six months to a year. So it was a great year or nine was fine. Also ten. Nothing was coming in like whoa. Yeah. So we, I read a lot of articles and try to get exposure, you know, in different trade magazines.

00:45:12:02 – 00:45:32:09
STUART ZALL
And a partner of mine that I worked with on, he did like repositioning of malls and you guys and we wrote an article and a guy from, China called us up and said, can you, can you do this for us in China? And. Yeah, you know, our our default answer is yes.

00:45:32:14 – 00:45:33:07
SIGNET
Right. We can.

00:45:33:07 – 00:45:33:22
STUART ZALL
Do anything.

00:45:33:22 – 00:45:34:06
SIGNET
Right?

00:45:34:10 – 00:45:53:15
STUART ZALL
And then we start screaming and saying, oh God, yeah. But it’s weird, Eduardo. How like so first we were like, okay, but we don’t know how we got to get the data. Yeah. What are the demographics? He’s one of the psychographics. And and you can’t get the data in China. This is the government provides. And that’s all.

00:45:53:17 – 00:45:54:11
SIGNET
Right.

00:45:54:13 – 00:46:10:13
STUART ZALL
It just doesn’t exist. So I had a gal, Serena working for me at the time. She was from Korea. Korea. And I’ve told her about that. She goes, you know, I went to the ICC in Korea last fall or whatever it was, and and met this guy.

00:46:10:15 – 00:46:11:07
STUART ZALL
Who.

00:46:11:09 – 00:46:12:02
STUART ZALL
Does data.

00:46:12:07 – 00:46:12:14
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:46:12:17 – 00:46:19:09
STUART ZALL
Get out of here. Seriously? So she gave me the guy’s name and where he went to University of Denver.

00:46:19:15 – 00:46:20:15
SIGNET
Oh, really? Okay.

00:46:20:17 – 00:46:22:17
STUART ZALL
Living over in Asia? Yeah.

00:46:22:19 – 00:46:23:20
SIGNET
Hey, can you do this?

00:46:23:20 – 00:46:33:12
STUART ZALL
And he’s like, yeah. So we’ve partnered with them. You got to sit down. And we did this merchandise. And then they liked it so much and said who can you lease it for us.

00:46:33:14 – 00:46:34:22
STUART ZALL
Yeah sure.

00:46:35:00 – 00:46:57:07
STUART ZALL
Why not. Yeah I had no idea. Yeah. Yeah. So at the time was you know, the time was great was in 2011, if you were an American in China, you could do no wrong. Member of God to the Chinese today. I don’t know, right. Probably not the case. So, we went over there and we started leasing, and you know, calling up all these companies.

00:46:57:09 – 00:47:05:04
STUART ZALL
And the project actually was in Xi’an, which is west, China, which is where the Terracotta Warriors.

00:47:05:04 – 00:47:07:04
SIGNET
Oh, that’s why I’ve heard of it. Okay.

00:47:07:06 – 00:47:10:20
STUART ZALL
Other interesting thing was the end of the Silk Road. Yeah. So.

00:47:10:22 – 00:47:12:15
SIGNET
Oh it is, I didn’t know. Oh.

00:47:12:15 – 00:47:33:06
STUART ZALL
In the town square, there was actually a synagogue was really a mosque. And there were that come by, I’m saying. Right. Jews of China, there were so, you know, the wow, there are Chinese Jews. And she or some of them and anyway, so we started leasing it up and talking to all the brands.

00:47:33:06 – 00:47:55:10
STUART ZALL
So I had the relationships with the brands in the US, but the whole different companies. But I knew, hey, I called the guy from Abercrombie, who’s your, you know, Chinese contact at Brooks Brothers. So they brought in. We’re getting at least. And, we have fully leased. Meanwhile, you know, I still have projects going on in Denver, so I’m going back and forth between China and Denver.

00:47:55:12 – 00:48:23:09
STUART ZALL
And I found this phone line at the time, which was, on Wi-Fi, but it had like a local Denver phone number. So somebody called me. It wasn’t WhatsApp, right? Whatever you could call me as long as I had Wi-Fi. And yeah, I was right next to you. Wow. Okay, so I work in China and then I sleep for about two hours, wake up in the Denver was getting up, and then I spent like 4 or 5 hours working on my projects and well, and I didn’t want any of my clients to know I was in China here because I was afraid to fire me.

00:48:23:10 – 00:48:29:03
STUART ZALL
Right. And so sometimes I would be like, oh, I want to see your property. I’m like, can you see it? Next one?

00:48:29:04 – 00:48:29:21
SIGNET
Yeah, yeah.

00:48:29:23 – 00:48:53:07
STUART ZALL
Yeah, sure. No problem. You know. Yeah. And I pulled it off and then, the I thought the interesting telltale sign on the same day, I got a call from a real estate director for Banana Republic, in China, begging me to go into what it was called. Cosmo Square. And she, and, the same day I got a call from the real estate director of Banana Republic.

00:48:53:07 – 00:48:57:12
STUART ZALL
He was begging me to get out of a shopping center. California. Like, what is going.

00:48:57:15 – 00:48:58:22
SIGNET
Yeah, yeah.

00:48:59:00 – 00:49:18:20
STUART ZALL
Ultimately, with the project, and she, we had it fully leased, and, they decided at the time that housing was so hot, more lucrative for them to build homes. So they scrapped the retail project, which didn’t matter because we got paid in advance. I wasn’t going to chase anybody in China for money. Right. So it’s like you want to you want to work on it.

00:49:19:01 – 00:49:22:20
STUART ZALL
You know, you need to pay, right? It’s like a gift card. You love the gift card, right?

00:49:22:20 – 00:49:23:15
SIGNET
Right.

00:49:23:17 – 00:49:37:05
STUART ZALL
Right. So by the time we were out of the project in 2013, the economy here was back. And, we went on. But we’ve worked in projects in Puerto Rico and Hawaii. Wow. I haven’t done much in Europe. I was.

00:49:37:07 – 00:49:37:21
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:49:37:23 – 00:49:38:13
STUART ZALL
Up there.

00:49:38:15 – 00:49:58:13
SIGNET
Yeah. It’s. I do, they’re doing residential though, but yeah, that’s I mean, that’s interesting because it’s a whole nother market. I mean, just when you say Reno and Cherry Creek here in Denver, I feel like those are different markets too, because you have very. But I feel like you deal with a lot of high end and, you know, popular and trendy tenants.

00:49:58:14 – 00:50:25:17
STUART ZALL
I call it I don’t we don’t deal with too much lux, which would mean like, you know, Gucci Hermes. Right. Unfortunately. And Denver’s not a very lux market, right? Right. A number of, lux goods, you know, they’re. I’m sure. Yeah, yeah. That’s it. But we do. We deal with what I call upper moderate brands. Emerging brands. That are, you know, the vagaries of the world, the, capital right now.

00:50:25:17 – 00:50:49:19
STUART ZALL
But, you know, I mean, any of the better brands, the lululemon’s, the, we work with, North Face and Birkenstocks, kind of the treasure there. You know. But we also work with, I love working with, immigrants, and these guys are fearless, you know? And so. So, yeah. Clients or people that just. They just want to create a job or business.

00:50:49:19 – 00:51:05:02
STUART ZALL
Maybe they can’t get hired on the regular job, but that, you know, they can do restaurants, they can, you know, they take chances and sometimes, these chances turn into great businesses. I have a client, if you saw in chic shoes.

00:51:05:02 – 00:51:07:20
SIGNET
So I think so.

00:51:07:22 – 00:51:10:01
STUART ZALL
I met him when he had one store.

00:51:10:01 – 00:51:10:14
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:51:10:16 – 00:51:12:09
STUART ZALL
And today is, like 140.

00:51:12:11 – 00:51:13:08
SIGNET
I’m like,

00:51:13:10 – 00:51:32:02
STUART ZALL
Yeah, JD sports. Yeah. And I still consider one of my best friends. Yeah. And, you know, I knew him when he had one store. I know he has 140, right? The same at the core of the same person, but it’s kind of cool when you, grow a brand. It’s really interesting, you know, fun to see that happen, too.

00:51:32:03 – 00:51:41:09
SIGNET
I mean, that’s something that that’s part of their story. I mean, that’s something I think you did that with A and M2 where you had like the first or H&M the first.

00:51:41:10 – 00:52:03:02
STUART ZALL
We did the first one in, in Colorado, and you know, and then they’re so that, you know, I mean, they’ve withstood the, the stress of downtown. Yeah. You know, they the great brand in you know, unfortunately they closed during Covid. But Uniqlo, we brought the only close to downtown Denver forever 21 was another one sometimes you know brightened up.

00:52:03:04 – 00:52:03:17
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:52:03:19 – 00:52:11:14
STUART ZALL
No brands unfortunately can last forever. But you know hopefully you get 50 or 1 or more out of them.

00:52:11:16 – 00:52:37:18
SIGNET
Thinking you were talking about the 16th Street Mall. That’s something that to me, coming from Los Angeles, what is the secret? Because in LA it’s very hard to turnaround cities. Maybe it’s a bureaucracy, maybe it’s, you know, I don’t know what it is in Los Angeles. Here you have that downtown Denver, partnership, and you have developers working hand in hand with political bodies and, you know, what’s the secret to turning around?

00:52:37:23 – 00:52:41:18
SIGNET
Like, I mean, kind of a meta question, but.

00:52:41:18 – 00:53:04:18
STUART ZALL
Yeah. Well, I mean, first of all, you, when you’re comparing LA versus Denver is is one thing, right? Yeah, I mean, not I mean, I think our downtowns are similar, but Los Angeles County is massive, right? It’s just maybe too hard. We’re a little more nimble. We have a lot of history with downtown. I think our city fathers, whoever they may be.

00:53:04:20 – 00:53:08:03
STUART ZALL
Let me. Yeah. You look, you start at Union Station, which effectively.

00:53:08:03 – 00:53:08:11
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:53:08:11 – 00:53:11:15
STUART ZALL
Add to the 16th Street Mall, right? Right, right.

00:53:11:21 – 00:53:12:23
SIGNET
Consider that right.

00:53:12:23 – 00:53:37:00
STUART ZALL
And what they did there was such a beautiful, project. And actually, I don’t know the history of this, but, Union Station is what caused Denver to grow. And, I mean, there were other things too. There was the oil crash and oil and all this. But in the late I think it was in the late 1880s or 1890s, the Union Pacific Railroad station was supposed to go in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

00:53:37:02 – 00:53:38:06
SIGNET
Oh, really? Wow.

00:53:38:06 – 00:53:41:06
STUART ZALL
City fathers found out about it. I don’t know what they tried.

00:53:41:08 – 00:53:42:03
SIGNET
Right.

00:53:42:05 – 00:53:54:15
STUART ZALL
But they got it. And the literally, the railroad should have gone through I-80 right across flatter ground. Yeah. Yeah, they got on to come through Denver, and that’s what really caused Denver to grow. And so.

00:53:54:17 – 00:53:55:08
SIGNET
Interesting.

00:53:55:10 – 00:54:17:01
STUART ZALL
Larimer Street not over here. Right. But one was downtown, you know, garden sports or pawn shop, Samsonite luggage, you know. Yeah. Billion dollar company started in Denver on Larimer Street. Because what would happen is it’s the 30 000 yeah. People a day switching trains. Right. Which when the city only had maybe a hundred thousand people.

00:54:17:01 – 00:54:17:09
SIGNET
Right.

00:54:17:09 – 00:54:30:13
STUART ZALL
One third of the city, you know, the city blew up by one third, you know, 30% bigger city. Yeah, just because of the train. So, you know, what would you need? You know, you get off the train, you got an hour or two to kill before you get on the train to L.A.

00:54:30:15 – 00:54:31:21
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:54:31:23 – 00:54:39:22
STUART ZALL
Luggage is one thing. And Samsonite, you know, the Schrader family built these cardboard, luggage for a quarter.

00:54:40:00 – 00:54:42:15
SIGNET
Oh, wow. Well, yeah. Yeah, they just blew up.

00:54:42:17 – 00:54:58:15
STUART ZALL
So you look at the history, and so there’s so many players that are great for debris. You know, you have, you know, the historic movement in downtown, serving Larimer Square, New Yorker, you know, so that you come to Denver just now, another steel brick.

00:54:58:20 – 00:54:59:13
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:54:59:14 – 00:55:09:01
STUART ZALL
Glass city, that actually has history tied in with new building. Yeah. And so, I mean, we have our struggles. No question. No question about it.

00:55:09:01 – 00:55:09:20
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:55:09:22 – 00:55:35:11
STUART ZALL
And everything from, you know, having the highest, minimum wage, you know, proportionately in the country to permitting times. There’s really good people behind it that believe in, in Denver. And so, and it’s I think you’re going to see a lot more in the next couple of years as the mall now it’s completed. Yeah, actually, I think October 4th, they’re going to have a big festivity downtown at the mall.

00:55:35:16 – 00:55:40:01
STUART ZALL
Sorry. The fourth. So tell your listeners from Denver what’s a free food?

00:55:40:04 – 00:55:58:00
SIGNET
It’s a great area. I lived right there by Union Station. I’d always go jogging through 16th. So it is a cool. And that’s another area that got completely changed. You know, there’s a whole the Whole Foods I lived above the Whole Foods and it’s great because the train is very safe. You know, there’s police there all the time.

00:55:58:00 – 00:55:58:19
SIGNET
Yeah. I mean, it’s.

00:55:58:20 – 00:56:16:13
STUART ZALL
Like I said, I think we during Covid we maybe dropped their garden. Got hit on a lot of a lot of levels. But now it is really the trend is, is on its way up. Right. Right now you’re going to see a lot of some of the older office buildings going through version to possibly residential if they can do it.

00:56:16:14 – 00:56:17:09
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:56:17:10 – 00:56:27:20
STUART ZALL
There’s still a need for housing. We have a even though the apartment rents are soft right now, there’s a huge shortage of, of apartments. And there will continue to be, as we grow.

00:56:27:21 – 00:56:32:03
SIGNET
So in prices to those who those have come up a lot since.

00:56:32:05 – 00:56:35:09
STUART ZALL
Have come up. I mean, interest rates, you know, in

00:56:35:11 – 00:56:39:00
STUART ZALL
every generation, there’s always going to be something. Yeah, that gets in the way.

00:56:39:02 – 00:56:46:03
STUART ZALL
And even for people to sell, it’s to expand. I mean, I listen all the time to somebody tell me, oh, it’s too expensive in a way till it comes down. Yeah.

00:56:46:05 – 00:56:47:04
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:56:47:06 – 00:56:54:08
STUART ZALL
Yeah, yeah. We, you save $25,000, you take 25,050 thousand. Yeah. Advertise it over 30 years. It’s the.

00:56:54:08 – 00:57:09:03
SIGNET
Benefits. Yeah. No. And I heard something once, and it wasn’t even real estate related but. Or investment related. But I think it was. It’s not timing the market. It’s time in the market. So it’s kind of the same principle.

00:57:09:05 – 00:57:29:06
STUART ZALL
So Jordan Perlmutter it was like sort of a, a long time, you know, developer called. Yeah, he passed away a few years ago, but he once told called. He goes, you know, real estate, projects that half of them, it’s like when you time it, right? Yeah. But even if you don’t know, time is you’re you’re just.

00:57:29:11 – 00:57:43:07
STUART ZALL
It’s a long game, you know, it’s like in golf, you know, everyone thinks in a three part, but it really isn’t. There’s been waves. Where are you? Where do you, you know, make a lot of money in a short period of time in real estate, but you really have to have a long view.

00:57:43:09 – 00:57:43:21
SIGNET
Yeah.

00:57:43:23 – 00:57:45:23
STUART ZALL
Oh, yeah. Long view. You’ll be successful.

00:57:46:00 – 00:58:10:23
SIGNET
It seems like that’s what you do also with your investments. You know, originally the name of this podcast was a long term real estate investor because the idea of thinking long term takes away a lot of the, you know, the IRR you can’t really calculate out. Or if you have a 100 year business plan. And I think that that’s a lot of the mentality I feel when you’re investing, when you’re leasing, it’s always about I feel long term.

00:58:10:23 – 00:58:13:19
SIGNET
Plus there’s a lot of transactional costs and trying to flip.

00:58:13:19 – 00:58:25:01
STUART ZALL
And with commercial, you know, unfortunately, as I said in the beginning of the podcast, yeah, I come from a real estate fan, right. For me, with the long term, start, planting the seeds, I would have been nice.

00:58:25:03 – 00:58:25:21
SIGNET
Well, it’s tricky.

00:58:26:00 – 00:58:28:02
STUART ZALL
I walked in and there were a few trees in the forest.

00:58:28:02 – 00:58:44:08
SIGNET
But it’s tricky too, because, you know, when you’re starting out, how are you going to buy something without getting financing? And a lot of times the long term plan is to get rid of all financing. So you don’t. So you have more stability and more, you know, you the bumps in the road aren’t as dramatic. All right.

00:58:44:08 – 00:58:59:06
SIGNET
So let me ask you these wrap up questions. I ask everybody these questions, although I want to ask you a quick one. Now that I know that I’m looking at the question, what was the number one deal that changed your career and that taught you the most or had the most impact on you?

00:58:59:11 – 00:59:00:22
STUART ZALL
Well,

00:59:01:00 – 00:59:02:21
SIGNET
That’s a that’s a tough question.

00:59:02:23 – 00:59:09:13
STUART ZALL
A tough I would say the critical it wasn’t the deal was a critical job of going to work for the Taubman Company.

00:59:09:15 – 00:59:10:06
SIGNET
Okay.

00:59:10:08 – 00:59:28:11
STUART ZALL
That was probably the most transformational change. Because it taught me they taught me how to lease, not for filling space, but actually creating neighborhoods. And when I was really I was 27 years old and I was.

00:59:28:13 – 00:59:29:11
SIGNET
You know. Yeah.

00:59:29:13 – 00:59:30:09
STUART ZALL
In my past.

00:59:30:11 – 00:59:32:23
SIGNET
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m doing.

00:59:33:01 – 00:59:40:14
STUART ZALL
And I met, I met a guy, a friend of mine who was living in the Bay area and he goes, oh, let’s go meet at this restaurant called Fresh Foods, which was like a soup.

00:59:40:14 – 00:59:41:19
STUART ZALL
Place.

00:59:41:21 – 00:59:45:21
STUART ZALL
So the line was like freaking out the door. I mean, like beyond.

00:59:45:23 – 00:59:47:16
SIGNET
I love that place. Okay.

00:59:47:17 – 01:00:05:10
STUART ZALL
Right. So I’m like, what is this place. So some guys handed out muffins and I’m like, you know the owner is you guys on the order? I’m like, get out of here. You know, just took this job. And we have two malls, one in Pleasanton, one in Concord. Yes. That he goes. Yeah. Oh yeah.

01:00:05:11 – 01:00:12:10
STUART ZALL
Yeah. Anyway, within 30 days I made two deals. So if you had to say what was like it immediately I walked in.

01:00:12:10 – 01:00:12:22
SIGNET
Yeah.

01:00:13:00 – 01:00:13:09
STUART ZALL
Kid on the.

01:00:13:09 – 01:00:14:04
SIGNET
Block. Yeah.

01:00:14:05 – 01:00:21:06
STUART ZALL
Only because my friend said come meet me at lunch or dinner or whatever was at this one place. But then I asked the question, right.

01:00:21:06 – 01:00:21:22
SIGNET
But yeah.

01:00:21:22 – 01:00:24:08
STUART ZALL
That’s the question. Sometimes you could be on the one yard line.

01:00:24:08 – 01:00:24:16
SIGNET
Yeah.

01:00:24:16 – 01:00:43:08
STUART ZALL
That’s sitting right in front of you. And all you have to do is just ask a question. Right. And I met the Martin Paul Verna. I ended up over the course of my career, probably like five deals with him. Well, so yeah, I guess what is it the most important? I don’t know, I mean, think about it. What is extremely important deals a very important deal for me.

01:00:43:10 – 01:01:05:10
SIGNET
Yeah. Well that’s great. So wrap up questions. Hardest lessons you ever learned in real estate? You’ve given me a lot of good lessons. So let me go to the next one. What are your three key daily habits that have made you successful? I’m always wondering, like what time people wake up, if they meditate, they read a certain newspaper.

01:01:05:11 – 01:01:06:16
SIGNET
Family time? Yeah.

01:01:06:21 – 01:01:08:07
STUART ZALL
Don’t read a newspaper.

01:01:08:09 – 01:01:09:03
SIGNET
Yeah. That’s.

01:01:09:07 – 01:01:35:22
STUART ZALL
Yeah. I get up early. Person I’m up at five. Well, okay. And my best time is probably between 5 and 8 is where I’m most productive. Okay. But, I, I there’s a lot of negative noises out there all the time, and I just taught myself how to have a filter, so. No, I would say don’t listen to all the bullshit out there.

01:01:36:00 – 01:01:44:02
STUART ZALL
It’s just meant to stop you from whatever you’re doing, right? So I just try to be positive. I do meditate for about ten minutes almost every day.

01:01:44:04 – 01:01:44:22
SIGNET
Okay.

01:01:45:00 – 01:02:07:07
STUART ZALL
Awesome. I, I do it to do less, but, you know, with all the CRMs, different, you know, technology, like paper and pencil, it really, it’s just. Yeah, I still have all that stuff. Yeah, but but just writing it down, and then just being thankful. Yeah. We should all be thankful that we live in this great country, you know, with all its problems, right?

01:02:07:07 – 01:02:27:02
STUART ZALL
We’re so lucky. And every day there’s so many opportunities that we can take advantage of. I sometimes ask myself, I wasn’t in real estate. I woke up tomorrow on what would I do? Like what I do. And I try to come up with ideas and I, you know, there’s tons of things you could do. And it. So I always think about when people get stuck.

01:02:27:02 – 01:02:28:17
SIGNET
Like, yeah, why? Yeah.

01:02:28:17 – 01:02:43:21
STUART ZALL
There’s no reason why you there. There’s so many things that can be done. So I guess I completely answer. I try to wake up with a smile and wake up to take on the world and, and usually by the end of the day, you know. Yeah, sometimes I want it. Sometimes.

01:02:43:21 – 01:03:01:10
SIGNET
Yeah. Yeah. So final question, what would you say to a young individual who wanted to start in the real estate business? They didn’t really know if they wanted to be a broker, an investor or what what segment, but how would they find their path?

01:03:01:12 – 01:03:05:07
STUART ZALL
When you sort of when you say like, what area should they.

01:03:05:09 – 01:03:11:11
SIGNET
Focus more like what advice do you give them, you know, you alluded to or you mentioned network networking was.

01:03:11:11 – 01:03:31:04
STUART ZALL
Good. Well, that’s really important that I would tell them, don’t be afraid. Know if you have to live at your parent’s house, delivery house, if you have to be an Uber driver, being Uber driver. Right. But and absorb as much as you possibly can like, you know, reading, there’s so much information out you don’t even have to subscribe.

01:03:31:05 – 01:03:51:18
STUART ZALL
Like, they’re just tons of information to be an expert at something so that you, you know, you end up becoming the go to guy. They talk about the 10,000 hours or something, right? Don’t try to do everything. Just find one area and and be the best at it. That’s great. That’s what I would tell you. But. And you got to have a passion.

01:03:51:20 – 01:03:52:05
STUART ZALL
You’re doing

01:03:52:05 – 01:03:59:23
STUART ZALL
it. If you think it’s a job, then you’re in the wrong business. But I think and everyone says, oh, it’s not a good time. It’s always a good time.

01:04:00:01 – 01:04:02:21
STUART ZALL
Or when it’s bad times are the best time to get into real estate.

01:04:03:02 – 01:04:17:20
SIGNET
Yeah, yeah. It’s true. Well, Stuart. Lovely. Thank you so much. We could do round two another time. Let’s. It’s my pleasure. So thanks for joining the podcast. And, hopefully we’ll grab dinner soon.

01:04:17:20 – 01:04:46:14
STUART ZALL
I hope so.

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