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Retail Real Estate Through the Eyes of Retailers
Read about RCS's holistic approach to service in this Dealmakers profile featured in the October 19 issue.
Oct 19, 2010 Dealmakers
RCS Real Estate Advisors is a retail real estate advisory firm operating offices in New York, NY and Chicago, IL. Founded in 1981, the company specializes in analyzing real estate portfolios, reducing occupancy costs and functioning as an ”outsourced” real estate department for retailers.
The vast majority of employees at RCS–around 90%–have a background in retail, ranging from positions as regional managers to general counsels or even owners of retail companies. “We’re retailers first,” said company founder and president Ivan L. Friedman. “We deploy our retail expertise through the lens of real estate.” The changes brought by the recession have done little to impact the way the company does business, he said, although it has affected the amount of activity within the company’s areas of expertise. For example, more people are now outsourcing their real estate practices–hiring a third party to manage the retailer’s entire real estate portfolio–and RCS has seen an increase in this aspect of their business as of late. “We have always been focused on our clients, and our practice is still the same, it’s just that it’s shifting and there’s more to do in certain categories than others,” he said.