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Authors: A. Alfred Taubman
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hung on strips on the wall. âLes,â I said, âyour stores are a blight on my shopping centers.â I told him that he had to redesign the stores or we would not have The Limited in our centers. Fortunately, he agreed with my analysis. Our companyâs store planning and design department lent a hand, and today, all divisions of The Limited and its spin-off brands, which certainly no longer need our help, are among the most successful stores in any mall: open, inviting, and full of energy. And Les Wexner has become one of my dearest friendsâand a great patron of fine architecture.
In two decades working as a builder and developer, I had been fortunate to form many long-lasting personal and professional relationships. Doing business with the same people over time builds trust and can lead to terrific opportunities. Over the years, I joined corporate boards, invested in other businesses, and continually built a network of contacts and colleagues.
Not all of these opportunities were attractive. In the 1970s, I was invited to Iran by the shah and his wife to consider development of a U.S.-style shopping center on the main highway from Tehran to the airport. I passed on the offer when I learned that essentially the entire ruling family and its chief advisers and ministers lived in and conducted business out of Geneva, Switzerland. Iâm glad I followed my instincts. The threshold resistance was way too high.
Some long-standing contacts, however, allowed me to apply mytheories of threshold resistance to real estate investing in a more hospitable climate. The opportunity came about in large part because of relationships I had formed working in California. In the late 1950s, I had first met Jimmy Peters. At the time, Jimmy and his brothers Leone and Tony were running the prospering New York real estate brokerage firm of Cushman & Wakefield. Jimmy introduced me to Charles Allen Jr., a very successful New York banker and a great businessman. Charles and his brother, Herb, were my partners in our earliest West Coast shopping centers. To return the favor, I introduced Jimmy to Warren Sconing, head of real estate for Sears. They hit it off, and Cushman ended up handling the Sears Tower. I also brought Jimmy to Detroit to make a deal with Detroit Bank and Trust (now Comerica) on their headquarters building on Fort Street. These were Cushman & Wakefieldâs first major assignments outside New York.
One day in 1976, Charles Allen called to ask me if I was familiar with the Irvine Ranch. He wanted me to go take a look at it because he thought we had an opportunity to buy it.
The Irvine Ranchâ77,000 acres of prized property in Southern Californiaâs Orange Countyâwas one of the most beautiful master-planned communities in the nation, and it had a storied past.
James Irvine, born in Belfast, Ireland, in 1827, came to America in 1846. He worked for a couple of years in a New York paper mill before heading to California in search of gold. Instead, he found riches in land. James became a successful produce merchant in San Francisco and began investing in real estate. By 1864, he had done well enough to join with two partners in purchasing three huge Mexican and Spanish land grantsâRancho San Joaquin, Rancho Lomas de Santiago, and a portion of Rancho Santiago de Santa Anaâwhich at the time covered 120,000 acres along the Pacific Ocean south of Los Angeles. James gradually bought out his partners and used the land primarily for sheep grazing. Irvineâs holdings gained in value as theSouthern Pacific and Santa Fe railroads were completed to Los Angeles in the 1870s and 1880s. He died in 1886, just as new residents began flocking to Southern California to start new lives.
The provisions of his will gave control of the ranch to his son, James Irvine II, when he turned twenty-five, in 1893. (It is reported that the young man, known as J.I., first traveled at age eighteen from San Francisco to
In two decades working as a builder and developer, I had been fortunate to form many long-lasting personal and professional relationships. Doing business with the same people over time builds trust and can lead to terrific opportunities. Over the years, I joined corporate boards, invested in other businesses, and continually built a network of contacts and colleagues.
Not all of these opportunities were attractive. In the 1970s, I was invited to Iran by the shah and his wife to consider development of a U.S.-style shopping center on the main highway from Tehran to the airport. I passed on the offer when I learned that essentially the entire ruling family and its chief advisers and ministers lived in and conducted business out of Geneva, Switzerland. Iâm glad I followed my instincts. The threshold resistance was way too high.
Some long-standing contacts, however, allowed me to apply mytheories of threshold resistance to real estate investing in a more hospitable climate. The opportunity came about in large part because of relationships I had formed working in California. In the late 1950s, I had first met Jimmy Peters. At the time, Jimmy and his brothers Leone and Tony were running the prospering New York real estate brokerage firm of Cushman & Wakefield. Jimmy introduced me to Charles Allen Jr., a very successful New York banker and a great businessman. Charles and his brother, Herb, were my partners in our earliest West Coast shopping centers. To return the favor, I introduced Jimmy to Warren Sconing, head of real estate for Sears. They hit it off, and Cushman ended up handling the Sears Tower. I also brought Jimmy to Detroit to make a deal with Detroit Bank and Trust (now Comerica) on their headquarters building on Fort Street. These were Cushman & Wakefieldâs first major assignments outside New York.
One day in 1976, Charles Allen called to ask me if I was familiar with the Irvine Ranch. He wanted me to go take a look at it because he thought we had an opportunity to buy it.
The Irvine Ranchâ77,000 acres of prized property in Southern Californiaâs Orange Countyâwas one of the most beautiful master-planned communities in the nation, and it had a storied past.
James Irvine, born in Belfast, Ireland, in 1827, came to America in 1846. He worked for a couple of years in a New York paper mill before heading to California in search of gold. Instead, he found riches in land. James became a successful produce merchant in San Francisco and began investing in real estate. By 1864, he had done well enough to join with two partners in purchasing three huge Mexican and Spanish land grantsâRancho San Joaquin, Rancho Lomas de Santiago, and a portion of Rancho Santiago de Santa Anaâwhich at the time covered 120,000 acres along the Pacific Ocean south of Los Angeles. James gradually bought out his partners and used the land primarily for sheep grazing. Irvineâs holdings gained in value as theSouthern Pacific and Santa Fe railroads were completed to Los Angeles in the 1870s and 1880s. He died in 1886, just as new residents began flocking to Southern California to start new lives.
The provisions of his will gave control of the ranch to his son, James Irvine II, when he turned twenty-five, in 1893. (It is reported that the young man, known as J.I., first traveled at age eighteen from San Francisco to
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