FEATURE ARTICLE, MAY 2004

A Growing Group
The Shopping Center Group grows by concentrating on all the services retailers and owners need.
Randall Shearin

What began in a one-office, two-desk executive suite has developed into a dominant retail real estate services company operating in nine states in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic. Today, The Shopping Center Group (TSCG) employs more than 140 people in 15 offices; it is a company where brokers rarely leave and whose potential for growth is practically unlimited.

David Birnbrey, chairman of
The Shopping Center Group.
Southeast Real Estate Business recently met with David Birnbrey, chairman, and Sam Latone, president, at The Shopping Center Group’s headquarters in Atlanta to find out more about one of the Southeast’s largest retail services firms.

The Shopping Center Group was founded in 1983 by Frank Buonanotte and Jeff Langfelder. Both men were directing the real estate expansion programs for retailers prior to forming the company. At the beginning, Buonanotte worked full time for TSCG, while Langfelder continued in his other “part time” job of running the real estate program for a new home improvement company, The Home Depot. Langfelder would leave The Home Depot about a year later and join TSCG on a full-time basis. Langfelder has since left TSCG and Buonanotte is retired, but remains a principal in the firm and serves on the company’s board of directors.

Sam Latone, president of
The Shopping Center Group.
During its first year of operation, TSCG’s most notable accounts were its property listings of the six Atlanta-area Drug Emporium centers known as “Exchanges,” and an exclusive tenant representation assignment with Pace Membership Warehouse, one of the early pioneers in the membership warehouse industry. Other listings and other retailers would quickly follow.

As retailers and developers’ interests grew beyond Atlanta, TSCG began opening satellite operations to better serve the needs of its clients. Over time, these operations would include Virginia (with offices in Norfolk and Richmond); Tennessee (offices in Nashville and Memphis); the Carolinas (offices in Charlotte, Raleigh and Charleston); Alabama (offices in Birmingham and Huntsville); and Florida (offices in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville). In each case, a separate, independent company was created with an established and credible broker (or brokers) who was firmly entrenched in that area, and who, most importantly, had a real and complete understanding of that particular retail market. These offices would, by design, be incubated out of the Atlanta office, avoiding the troublesome and potentially lethal expenses typical in an independent start-up business.

In 2002, what had become seven separate companies were merged together to create a single operating company, which would be the platform to take TSCG into the future. Operations were consolidated to eliminate redundant activities. This allowed all the company’s offices to enjoy the resulting economies of scale. Additionally, marketing and branding were consolidated so that existing and new clients would enjoy a consistent quality of service from office to office.

“The result is that the company has realized significant growth in revenue and profits typically seen only in new industries and companies,” says Latone.

“It’s most important to pay careful and close attention to local nuance and local character,” says Birnbrey, who joined TSCG a few months after it formed in 1983. “We quickly realized the differences between the way business was conducted in different areas of the Southeast. A great broker in Virginia may have a completely different approach and mindset than a great broker in Tennessee.”

“The client’s needs always come first, even to the detriment of the company, which results in long lasting and strong relationships,” adds Latone.

As such, in an effort to consistently provide the best information to its clients, The Shopping Center Group has insisted on perpetuating a philosophy of caring and sharing among its people.

“We like our clients and consider them to be our very good friends,” Birnbrey says. “It’s not uncommon for a meeting to be interrupted in our conference room by people walking in and giving our out of town clients a big ol’ bear hug. At the end of the day, the service to the retailer, landlord or developer is all that matters.”

Although TSCG has historically been known as a retail tenant representation firm, its work on behalf of landlords is extensive. In fact, today, TSCG is exclusively representing more than 30 million square feet of listed retail space. Under the direction of Noel Turner, the company’s management division is currently managing more than 6 million square feet of space. The investment sales group, which operates under the direction of longtime Atlanta fixture Neil Pringle, is on target to have more than $300 million in investment sales and financing this calendar year. According to Birnbrey, investment sales and management are the two fastest growing areas of the firm.

The way TSCG does business has paid off well for the company — as indicated by the company’s $1 billion in transaction volume in 2003. The focus of the company has been and always will be as a retail service provider; it has no interest in becoming a developer or landlord.

“We will not compete with the developers and landlords who rely on our services and who pay our fees,” says Birnbrey.

“A perfect deal for the company would be to identify a potential development opportunity; bring the opportunity to a developer client; lease it for the developer; bring the company’s tenant clients to it; manage, finance and sell the center,” says Latone.

To make sure its people are committed to the company’s standards and to the perpetuation of its growth, TSCG has created a very unique partnership program.

“Partnership is not awarded based on productivity or tenure, but rather on an assessment of the value an individual brings to the reputation of the company and the continuing commitment to its mission,” says Latone.

As a result, several of the more than 30 partners in the company are not producers, but rather, administrative assistants, office managers or researchers. As they say, partnership has its privileges. In addition to sharing in the distribution of profits of the company and to being involved in major decisions affecting the company, the family of a partner of TSCG is protected in the event of death, disability and retirement by the company’s stock redemption program.

The Shopping Center Group’s very nature is to make sure it is a longstanding company. Already on its second generation of leadership, succession planning is paramount in every decision made.

“David and I look at ourselves as the custodians of this organization for a period of time,” says Latone. “We’re managing it today, but our goal is to make sure that we’ve got an organization with leadership that we can turn the company over to so that the company will ultimately survive us.”

Training is a hallmark of TSCG, and as such, a leadership program has been developed along with very detailed training manuals. In addition, the company has a “University” program scheduled once a year where every agent in the entire company meets in Atlanta for additional training and networking.

There is more growth on the horizon for The Shopping Center Group.

“In addition to the areas within our region that need to be better serviced with a local presence, we do predict logical and sensible growth of our company outside of our present area of operation,” says Birnbrey.

With careful adherence to the strictest standards of ethics and service, a program that rewards people for their contribution to the reputation of the company, an attitude that makes hard work good fun, and by providing its clients with better market knowledge, better relationships, better service and better results, The Shopping Center Group seems ideally positioned for sustained growth for many years to come.

©2004 France Publications, Inc. Duplication or reproduction of this article not permitted without authorization from France Publications, Inc. For information on reprints of this article contact Barbara Sherer at (630) 554-6054.




Search Property Listings


Requirements for
News Sections



City Highlights and Snapshots


Editorial Calendar



Today's Real Estate News