Internship in Lincoln Property Company

Categories: Internship Personal Experience

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Throughout this summer semester I had the great opportunity of working for the company called, “Lincoln Property Company”. Lincoln Property Company is one of the largest international commercial real estate companies in the world, along with being ranked the second largest commercial real estate company in the country. Lincoln Property Company was founded in 1965 by Mark Pogue, then in 1977 Trammell Crow was added to the team as a co-founder. Lincoln Property Company was originally started by building garden apartments in the southwest, which then expanded into commercial and retail projects all over the country.

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Their commercial division provides third party management and leasing services for offices, industrial, retail, and mixed-used properties. Now Lincoln Property Company has development and investment properties in more than 200 cities. They also own, lease, and manage roughly 300 residential communities consisting of more than 163,000 units throughout the country. They have more than 75 offices nationwide, including in places such as New York City, Boston, Denver, Seattle, Los Angles, San Francisco, Miami, and Dallas.

I was fortunate enough to work at their headquarters in Dallas, where I was able to learn from the CEO of Lincoln Property Company, Bill Duvall.

Bill Duvall grew up in a rough area of Dallas called, “Oak Cliff”. He was determined to build a better life for himself and immediately got into real estate. He first started out as a leasing agent in residential real estate. Once he had enough money to invest, he bought 5 commercial buildings and quickly spread his name throughout the commercial real estate industry.

Then In 1979, Bill Duvall joined Lincoln Property Company as a partner. His job was to manage development projects in other regions and areas of the country. He was responsible for forming partnerships in various cities, typically with real estate brokers. His connection became so strong that they became very helpful in winning Lincoln Property Company the permit or bid to buildings. He then became the CEO of Lincoln Property Company and from that point on he has been a commercial real estate mogul.

Throughout the first week of my internship, we were immediately thrown into action. The first day of work myself, along with the three other interns, were put into a meeting discussing a building worth 60 million dollars. I know from that point this internship was going to be a great experience. After that meeting, Mr. Duvall assigned us multiple projects over some of their new properties. One of the projects was to tour the Dallas Cowboys headquarters, practice facility and retail space at The Star in Frisco. During the tour I was able to see all the ins and outs of their headquarters, including their “War Room” where they decide and select their draft picks, practice fields, locker room, weight room, even their talk show room. As another part of the project we had to view their retail stores. They had many different type of restaurants, such as Italian, Mediterranean, American, sandwiches, sports bars, Mexican, Greek, and Southern food. We then had to create a power point presentation and write a two page paper over what we thought about the headquarters, which retail we thought was good, which ones we thought would not stay in business, and if we would add anything to make the property more valuable.

Another project we were assigned was to tour two urban village properties in Plano called “The Shops at Legacy” and “Legacy West”. The Shops at Legacy was built in 2010 and Legacy West was built at the end of 2017 right across the street from The Shops at Legacy. The purpose of this project was to see if the new upcoming off Legacy West would cause The Shops at Legacy to decrease in annual revenue and affect business. Legacy West is an urban village located in Plano that opened in 2017, a $3 billion project that sits on a 250-acre lot of land. It has over 300,000 square feet consisting of restaurants, retail stores, and entertainment. It also has roughly 300,000 more square feet of office space, along with about a thousand apartments, and a high-rise Renaissances Hotel consisting of 300 rooms. Legacy West's retailers include Bonobos, Coach, Fabletics, Filson, Johnny Was, Peter Millar, Tesla, Tommy Bahama, TUMI, West Elm, and more. Restaurants in Legacy West include Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steak House, Fogo de Chao, Mesero, Shake Shack, Taverna, True Food Kitchen and Toulouse. Legacy West’s most well-known restaurant is Legacy Hall. Legacy Hall is a 55,000 square foot food hall that has more than 20 restaurants under one roof, much like a mall food court. The restaurants are miniature versions of already existing local brands or new ideas from well-known chefs in the area. Legacy Hall also has eight bars, an in-house brewery and an outdoor music venue. Surrounding the outdoor music venue, there is a “box garden" that has several more bars designed in shipping containers.

Even though Legacy West overshadows The Shops at Legacy because it’s brand new, The Shops at Legacy still has a lot to offer. The Shops at Legacy is a 168-acre mixed-use urban town center in the middle of the 2,600-acre Legacy Business Park. The upscale retail and restaurants space consists of 400,000 square feet with roughly 50 restaurants and 30 retail stores. The office space of 1.8 million square foot consists of seven towers. The residential space offers over 3,100 luxury townhomes, lofts, and apartments. Parking consists of over 1,800 spots including on-street parking, garage parking, and valet services. East also has a Marriott hotel and an Angelika movie theater. The Marriott has a 32,000 square foot meeting and event center, along with over 400 rooms. The Angelika is a 5-screen boutique movie theater and café that shows independent specialty films. I came to the conclusion that The Shops at Legacy business will go down slightly due to the addition of Legacy West right across the street. I do however believe that with time Legacy West will not retain the crowd it is attracting currently. At that point The Shops at Legacy and Legacy West will be split or slightly favoring Legacy West. What really sets the two apart is the food hall, which will allow Legacy West to flourish for years to come.

Another project we were assigned was to tour another urban village in Dallas called “The Village on Parkway”. Lincoln Property Company recently bought for 80 million dollars and then quickly sold the property a year later for 180 million dollars. The purpose of this project was to figure out why the turn around was so successful and what additions made the urban village more profitable. When trying to figure out what new additions made this urban village more profitable, we decided to look at the two different site plans.

When comparing the two different site plans, old to new, it is evident some major changes were made, and steady improvement was achieved. In the new plans, the layout of the property was changed to allow more parking spots and a more modern concept. They were able to do this by purchasing additional property and changing the positioning of certain buildings. Another major change that occurred in the redevelopment plans was fixing current access and internal circulation within the shopping center, making it easier for visitors to navigate through the plaza. There was also an addition of a five-story parking garage which clearly helped the parking situation tremendously. More parking was a big necessity due to the additions of Whole Foods, AMC Theatres, and AT&T store, which we believe will attract a new and larger crowd during different times of the day. Along with the AMC Theatres, Whole Foods and the AT&T store, the Village on the Parkway added and updated their restaurants on site. They created a better selection of restaurants, ranging from popular casual restaurants to popular upscale restaurants in order to attract a larger crowd. The center offers food choices which include American, Italian, Greek, Mexican, seafood, sandwich places, burger and chicken places, bars, and pubs. Outside of the restaurant scene, there are plenty of storefronts that offer anything from movie theater, grocery store, restaurants, shopping, a gym facility, phone servicing, salons, spas, mattress shopping, and even a dentist office. This variety gives visitors more and more reason to keep coming back to the Village for different reasons, whether if its get your teeth checked out or grocery shop at whole foods. There are still some vacant spots left on the site, allowing for the opportunity to improve it even more so.

Starting the second week of my internship we worked in three, three-week rotations consisting of the industrial, medical, and leasing departments throughout the commercial real estate industry. I first began in the industrial department, where I worked under and shadowed the executive vice president of the industrial department, Tom Kuhlmann. During my time shadowing Mr. Kuhlmann, I sat in on many meetings, toured industrial properties, opened industrial properties for tours, stacked buildings and worked on a project over the industrial properties market.

The meetings I sat in on consisted of discussing developmental properties in Austin, TX and Dallas, TX. It was very interesting to sitting in on these meetings, because I was able to learn and understand the long and difficult process of developing and buying property. When I went on the tours with the industrial team, I was able to see what it takes and how to act in order to sell or lease that piece of industrial property. Stacking buildings is when you go to a building and walk through each floor figuring out the square footage, occupancy, rent, parking, and more. From stacking, I was able to learn and understand how to figure out how to estimate price per square footage, along with talking to occupants and management about their buildings. The project I worked on had two purposes. One was to help inform me of what to look for in a property, how to find property, and how to compare fair values of properties to one another. The other purpose was to help Lincoln Property Company figure out their selling value for properties by comparing them to similar buildings to potentially beat our competitors with our listings.

For my next rotation and the second department I worked in was the medical department. Lincoln Property Company’s medical department is handled by their partner company called, “Lincoln Harris CSG Healthcare Group”. During my time with Lincoln Harris I worked under and shadowed their senior vice president of healthcare, Nathaniel Klein. Nathaniel was very helpful, always made sure I was learning and understood everything. In the medical department I did similar things, such as sitting in on meeting, taking tours of health centers and stacking health centers.

During my first week there, I was able to tour the Baylor Scott and White Health and Sports Performance Center in Frisco at The Star. When touring this building I was able to learn that the purpose of this building is to have NFL scouts and NFL players to come there, work out, and prepare for either the draft and their upcoming football season. The building was very interesting to tour, they have a half indoor/half outdoor full football field, a full basketball court, a Gatorade performance center, weight room, and a medical facility. I was also able to tour the Children’s Medical Center in Plano. The purpose of this tour was for an informative meeting to learn about the building and what specifically they do, but also to tour the building because it is a direct competitor with their Baylor Scott and White building. The Children’s Medical Center had a very impressive medial facility, including a waiting room for people to watch their loved ones through a glass window to make sure their producer and their loved ones are going smoothly. They also have a weight lifting area, along with a sports performance section, and an outdoor football and soccer field. Both buildings seemed very similar to me, but it was definitely a neat and great experience to be able to tour them.

Throughout the next couple weeks at Lincoln Harris, I worked on a project consisting of find highly rated doctors and sports physicians, and highly rated facilities. The purpose of this was for me to learn how to find contacts that will lead to sales. Another purpose to this project and more importantly, was so they could show this report to executive of the Dallas Cowboys, including Jerry Jones. They needed to show this to the Cowboys so they could both agree upon what doctors and sports physicians to select for their new Baylor Scott and White building at The Star. So, to say the least, I took this project very seriously and gave it my all, with my hard work and effort. I enjoyed my time very much at the Lincoln Harris office. It gave me the opportunity to learn a completely different side of the industry that I was not aware of. It also allowed me to meet more well-respected people within their industry to further better my network and establish relationships.

For my last rotation, I finished in the commercial leasing department. This is Lincoln Property Company’s largest department, so I had the opportunity to work with my different people instead of just working under and shadowing one individual. When I began this rotation, I was immediately put on a project about the company “We Work”. We Work is a corporation that was started and founded in 2010 by Miguel McKelvey and Adam Neumann. We Work provides shared workspace for technology startups, small businesses, freelancers, and entrepreneurs. They wanted to build more than just a nice shared office space, so they incorporated a community aspect within their offices. A place where you join as an individual, “me”, but where you become a part of something greater, “we”. Adam and Miguel wanted to create a world where people work to make a life, not just a living.

The concept of We Work was originally created in 2008 when Miguel and Adam first met. Miguel was a basketball player at Oregon before moving to New York and becoming an architect at a small firm. Adam was a serial entrepreneur working on a product line for babies called “Crawlers”. Adam lived in the same building that Miguel worked in. They both realized that their building was not completely occupied and decided to rent a floor and lease it to people who needed work space. This idea was eventually formed into a company called “Green Desk”. Green Desk is an environmentally friendly work space that offers recycled furniture and wind powered electricity. Adam and Miguel were making good money with Green Desk but realized they needed to add a different and new aspect to the company in order to separate themselves from others doing the same thing. They sold Green Desk in 2010 for a couple million dollars, and then shortly after formed We Work.

We Work currently has a valuation of $20 billion and more than 200,000 members in 382 offices across 72 cities in 18 different countries. Each office has a similar modern layout but none of them are exactly the same. Each office offers all-inclusive workplace amenities, such as super-fast internet, unique common areas, stocked kitchen, office supplies, printing nook, onsite staff, and even cleaning services. We Work offers different types of membership options, consisting of their custom buildout, private office, dedicated desk, hot desk, on demand, and the we work app option.

The purpose of this We Work project was to determine whether or not Lincoln Property Company should get involved in the We Work industry. I believe Lincoln Property Company should get involved in the We Work industry because there seems to be a big market for this if it is executed properly. We Work has raised over $8 billion, along with having $4.4 billion flowing in since July 2017. Their company now has a valuation of $20 billion and had an annual revenue of $1 billion for 2017 which is up 88% from the previous year. We Work is now the third largest startup by valuation in the U.S. after Uber and Airbnb. They also began building offices for big companies, such as Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM, which proves even more growth potential within the company. We Work is technically a commercial real estate business but is perceived in a different way. Why not take one of the best commercial real estate companies in the world to help advance We Work to the next level? The final project I was given for my internship had two separate parts to it. The first part was to do a research project over high loft apartments in the Dallas area and the second part was to do the same but for apartments in the London area. The purpose of this project was to inform myself about the listing prices for different types and styles of rooms, along with amenities offered, and more in Dallas. Another purpose for this project was to find how London apartments differ from Dallas apartments. The reason for this is because Lincoln Property Company is building projects in the London area and are looking to add an urban village with a residential area.

I was asked to find the number of units within the building, the year it was built, the height of the ceilings in their rooms, the lease lengths they offer, the unit size in square footage, the cost of the different rooms they offer, any additional fees they have, and the amenities in which they offer. I was asked to find this information on for eleven different high loft apartments, in which case I toured them in order to get the most precise information. Two of the apartment building were still under construction at the time, so I had to take a hard hat tour and was able see how some of the construction is done. In Dallas, I found that the apartments are more expensive but also more luxurious in comparison to London apartments. In London, apartments are nice as well but for the most part do not come close in comparison with Dallas. London apartments seemed to have less amenities to offer and seem to have a very plain but modern look to them. The area in London in which Lincoln Property Company is looking to build, has a unique night life, retail, and residential area that is still up and coming. Lincoln Property Company is looking to contribute heavily to the area.

In conclusion, I had an amazing summer and was fortunate enough to have this great internship and experience. I was able to learn the ins and outs of the commercial real estate industry as a whole. More specifically, I was able to learn how to conduct myself throughout meetings and tours, I was able to learn some of the terminology throughout the industry, I was able to learn what drives this market, I was able to learn what it takes to buy or sell property and buildings, along with so much more. Most importantly what I got from this internship is a career path. Coming into this internship I was still unsure of what I wanted to do in life, but after completing it I realized that I have a great interest for commercial real estate and I hope to continue working in this industry. I am very appreciative of the opportunity Mr. Duvall and the rest of the Lincoln Property Company team gave me this summer. I was able to learn new skills, meet new people, figure out a career path, and best of all, I had fun and a great time do it.