Owner-side real estate advisory

Institutional judgment, at consulting scale.

Twenty-five years of retail and mixed-use asset management, development, and repositioning, brought to owners who need a senior operator's perspective without a full-time hire.

Start a conversation See selected work

The approach

Most owners face moments that call for institutional-caliber capability: a repositioning, a lease-up, a redevelopment, a portfolio that needs a sharper business plan. Few need, or can justify, a full executive bench to get there. I bring that bench to the engagement, drawing on the same disciplines I ran across sixteen years at Westfield and as head of asset management for a downtown Los Angeles portfolio. I also work alongside buyers and lenders on distressed and transitional retail, bringing an operator's view to diligence and the repositioning plan before capital is committed.

What I do

Four disciplines, one operator

Engagements are scoped to the owner's actual need, whether a single asset, a portfolio review, or a redevelopment strategy, and priced by phase rather than by the hour.

Asset management

Property-level business plans, budgets and reforecasts, leasing strategy, and the operating discipline that moves occupancy and net operating income. Owner-level reporting throughout.

Development & repositioning

Turning a highest-and-best-use idea into an executable roadmap: capital structure, phasing, entitlement path, and the tradeoffs an owner needs to see before committing.

Design & execution oversight

Guiding the design and construction of retail and mixed-use environments so the delivered asset matches the underwriting: on program, on budget, and leasable.

Acquisition & distressed asset advisory

Buy-side diligence and repositioning underwriting for retail and mixed-use assets in transition: physical and operating risk, anchor and recorded-agreement constraints, entitlement path, and a credible plan for what the asset becomes.

Selected work

A track record you can point to

A sample of engagements across ownership, asset management, and current advisory.

THE GRAND

The Grand LA

Retail advisory, current

Related Companies / CORE (USA)
Downtown LA

Advising ownership on retail repositioning and lease-up at the $1B mixed-use development designed by Frank Gehry on Bunker Hill, opposite Walt Disney Concert Hall.

ROW

ROW DTLA

Director of Asset Management

Atlas Capital Group
Downtown LA

Led full-lifecycle asset management for a 1.3M-square-foot adaptive-reuse retail, office, and creative campus in downtown Los Angeles, driving occupancy, leasing, and a multi-year capital program.

SFC

San Francisco Centre

Vice President, Design & Development

Westfield / URW
San Francisco

Led development at Westfield's flagship urban center over eight years, delivering Westfield's regional offices, Westfield Labs, and Bespoke, a 40,000-square-foot coworking and events platform. Scoped and led the property's repositioning plan, including negotiating a restructured Nordstrom agreement and a ground lease extension with SFUSD, converting part of the building to office use, and a full renovation, through extensive community and city outreach to unanimous Planning Commission approval in 2019.

VALENCIA

Valencia Town Center

Vice President roles

Westfield / URW
Santa Clarita

Directed a $25M interior renovation of the regional town center and led the opportunistic repositioning of a struggling anchor box into productive use.

Background

Built on the owner's side of the table

My career runs from civil and environmental engineering into the ownership and operation of major retail and mixed-use assets: sixteen years at Westfield across three vice president roles in contracts, design, and development, then head of asset management for the ROW DTLA portfolio at Atlas Capital Group.

That path means I've sat in most of the seats an owner has to coordinate: the pro forma, the design review, the construction schedule, the lease negotiation, and the business plan that ties them together. Engagements draw on all of it.

Experience25+ years

LicensurePE, Civil (California)

GraduateM.S., Stanford University

UndergraduateB.S., UCLA

Focus marketWestern US · LA & SF

Asset typesRetail · Mixed-use

Contact

Let's talk about the asset.

Tell me a little about the property or the situation, and I'll follow up to set a time. Initial conversations are exploratory, with no obligation.

Prefer email? Reach me directly at chris@ckreconsulting.com