Koll's Steve Van Amburgh

GlobeSt.com: How did you get the Citigroup assignment?

Van Amburgh: When I first went to work in Las Colinas, I started calling on them, and over an 11-year period I never got one piece of business because they never did build-to-suit development. So patience was a virtue. After 11 years they allowed us to build a $50-million office building, and we showed them we can do a project of that size to a budget and a schedule. From there, we've gotten another two million sf from different Citigroup entities. We've taken all of their leased space in the Las Colinas/Irving area and consolidated it into an 850,000-sf campus, which they should occupy within 12 months. We're also doing another office building of 225,000 sf and finishing up three call centers. Those have been the proudest projects we've ever had; we finished three office buildings--each about 108,000 feet--in a seven-month timeframe, and none of them were in Dallas.

GlobeSt.com: Since you branched out in 1998, the ratio of spec to build-to -suit as flipped, has it not?

Van Amburgh: In 1998, we had a billion dollars of development work under way, and 25% of that was corporate build-to-suit and 75% was spec work, mostly on the West Coast. Now it's 75% to 80% corporate build-to-suit. The whole spec business was unpredictable after 2000. Most of the West Coast spec guys are no longer with us, but we've backfilled them with corporate build-to-suit individuals.

GlobeSt.com: And what about Koll's ownership structure?

Van Amburgh: The ownership structure is different. When Don Koll retired in 2001, we arranged to acquire his interest. So today Koll is owned 50% by Northstar Capital in New York and 50% is owned by me, Toby Grove and Murray Newton. We've changed the structure and the focus and it has paid off over the past five years.

GlobeSt.com: Is training a challenge for you?

Van Amburgh: Sadly our business doesn't lend itself to training young people. Corporate America today depends on us providing professional services, so we can't put a young guy in a number-one slot on a large project. Our average project size is $25 million to $30 million. We have an average experience level of 14 years, and that's significant. If you don't exude trust, you won't get hired.

GlobeSt.com: What's your growth strategy?

Van Amburgh: We look at markets where job growth is better, where corporate America says it's going to expand. It's amazing what happens when you send out a questionnaire to your top 25 clients asking where they're going to grow in the next few years. As a result, we just opened Atlanta and Cincinnati offices. Cincinnati is focused on the institutional arena--especially educational work--more than corporate. We've missed the boat on that, so we're gearing up.

GlobeSt.com: In many respects your work ethic today reflects your college experience. How so?

Van Amburgh: The honor system at Washington & Lee is probably the most important thing at the school. You don't lie and you don't cheat and you don't tolerate those that do. It told me that trust is a good thing. Today, everything we do is an open book; we don't have doors on our offices in most instances. We want everything transparent, and in a day of Sarbanes/Oxley and the resultant paranoia, it's probably a good thing.