WHAT THE FUTURE OF OFFICE AND RETAIL LOOKS LIKE Christopher Rising, CEO, Rising Realty Partners

// WHAT THE FUTURE OF OFFICE AND RETAIL LOOKS LIKE

Christopher Rising, CEO, Rising Realty Partners

How did you work to make your company more diverse?

I consciously, in our team below the senior level, have tried to push really hard to have diversity. You have to do it. Otherwise, you’re not going to get tenants. You’re not going to get your buildings full. But you also have to do it because it’s the right thing because it makes us better. It gets these different points of view.

It’s important to help these new team members create wealth by getting points on deals and stuff. It would be good for anybody to incentivize them. I don’t want to make it sound like anything other than we have the best people. But we’re also very conscious of having diversity to reflect the people who are in our buildings.

What are your thoughts on the future of the office market?

I think the future is a hybrid. I think CEOs have been doing this and now are just going to bring it out to the whole workforce. You’re going to pick when you come in more. You’re going to be held accountable by your activity—by your achievement, not just because you showed up at 7:30. And I also think the densification that WeWork brought and others is out the window. These headquarters are going to more and more reflect the Los Angeles Lakers or a professional football team where you’re trying to meet a lot of needs to encourage people to come in to collaborate. The Googleization of it all.

I just would say to anybody, if a CEO is making a decision today, it’s out of triage, not out of long-term “this is what we’re going to do.” And they may not understand that. What is work? I think a computer programmer or someone working at a tech company does a lot different work than my asset managers. So I think businesses are going to have to look at what that is and what takes collaboration and what doesn’t.

Do you think the big box retailers and brick and mortar retailers are coming back?

I think it’s hard to be general and say something that applies to the whole country. I think it’s very market specific. That’s really a lot of what real estate is and I don’t think retail is any different. I think that there are certain types of retail we know are dead. Just like Amazon killed bookstores a long time ago and everyone was sort of, “oh a bookstore will always be there because it’s an experience.” That didn’t happen for the most part.

So I’m very pessimistic on most retail because I think most retailers have been lazy and haven’t really tried to meet the market and the market has got a very heavy hand. Having said that, there are certain parts of real estate that is working today. I go to the grocery store. There are still things about buying fresh produce, about that experience that grocery stores play a role and will continue to play a role.

Now someone like my 10-year-old son, who I’m sure is getting a master’s in Fortnite through all this, views the world radically differently than I do. He has friends through Fortnite all across the country, all across the world. That is filtering into our retail experience and I think it’s going to be painful. It’s hard to look someone who built a business over 30 years in retail, some sort of small sundry shop and all that, and say, I’m sorry but there’s no place for you anymore. That’s a hard thing to do but it’s the reality. And so I think the next few years are going to be very tough in that regard as it relates to retail. But I’m an optimist. I think entrepreneurs will find opportunities to create experiential retail on a micro level and those shops will survive.