Propel's Wendy Schwingel

With a corporate client list ranging from Toyota to Mobil to GES, Wendy Schwingel calls on 25 years’ experience in project management, and in particular on functioning as an owner’s representative. Schwingel and her Phoenix-based firm, Propel Real Estate Resources, handle duties ranging from title review to construction supervision to long-term strategic planning. She has negotiated approximately $350 million in transactions during her career, most recently acting in-house for Toyota Motor North America—a frequent repeat client on a variety of assignments—on its 10-year, $44-million lease of 30,511 square feet of headquarters space at Boston Properties’ 601 Lexington Ave. in New York City. While in New York recently, Schwingel sat down with GlobeSt.com to talk about how the function of an owner’s rep is construed and what the reporting channels are. As she makes clear, it’s all very client-dependent.

GlobeSt.com: How is the role of an owner’s rep defned? Does that vary from client to client?

Schwingel: It absolutely varies from client to client based on their needs, in large part because the projects could be of varying sizes and complexity. That would change the face of the assignment. The other elemental difference is that sometimes I provide ad hoc services that complement existing in-house real estate or facilities teams, while other times I act as an advisor as though I were their real estate or facilities department. That would be for companies that don’t have these resources at all or don’t have them in a particular geographic area. So the scope could vary greatly.

GlobeSt.com: For clients with a large geographic base, can requirements vary from region to region?

Schwingel: Yes, and they can also vary by the type of property. Certainly an industrial property has different needs than an office space or headquarters. Generally speaking, on the components that fall within my realm of responsibility, the most effective approach is a start-to-finish effort. If I can stay with the client and the project throughout, they’re better served as far as getting financial bang for the buck and the most seamless transition.

GlobeSt.com: Post-recession, have the requirements of your clients evolved? Are they being more cautious in forecasting what their requirements will be x number of years out?

Schwingel: That’s an excellent question, and again, it really depends on the client. The most sophisticated corporate client, the Fortune 500 type, usually are more cautious, want more detail, more backup and more confirmation of facts. The smaller and mid-sized companies, the ones that often need this help, are the ones that retrench and say “we’re really not sure we want to pay for these kinds of services.” They will decide to do nothing, which is a decision, or blunder forward, which is perhaps an even worse decision.

In these economic times, people that shouldn’t retrench are, and the people that already do this right are ramping up and doing even better. So my job is to anticipate what their needs might be, what their hot buttons and their values might be, so that I can make recommendations on what their challenges are at the moment.

GlobeSt.com: As clients’ needs and willingness to move forward vary, the reporting channels would also vary. Would you typically be interfacing with the head of a corporate real estate department, or in the absence of one, a CFO or COO?

Schwingel: It’s very client-dependent. If I’m in a remote location geographically, even with a big firm I might be dealing with an EVP of operations or someone at the top level in the local office. Other times I deal directly with the key people, whether the CEO, CFO or COO.

GlobeSt.com: Walk us through an example of the kinds of services you provided for a specific recent client.

Schwingel: Probably my proudest example was Toyota with their North American headquarters in Manhattan. After they relocated to 601 Lexington, they called upon me. As you might imagine, they have a huge real estate facilities department, but it’s based in California. They wanted someone to help them here to get the RFPs out and get the key team on board.

Very quickly, they recognized a couple of things. One was that there was a complex set of issues and processes to be managed, and also that the VP of administration couldn’t do it on her own without taking her focus away from her regular responsibilities. They asked if I would come back in an owner’s rep role; I would then report to headquarters in Japan and the North American staff here to help execute their plan and understand their vision of what this office should be. Since this was a 10-year lease, they had to think a little bit longer-term.

I agreed to come back in that role, and we did a project that not only allowed them to get in on time but also supported their corporate initiatives and spoke to the things that were important to the company. They’re very sustainability-oriented, so we did a LEED Gold project. They have a strong diversity program, so over 50% of the project spend was with with women- and minority-owned companies. Because I understood what they valued most from a corporate initiative perspective, it allowed me to do what I typically do in an owner’s rep role and then add all of these other elements that were also important to them.