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Page 10 — Property Management Quarterly — May 2015
by Michelle Z. Askeland
After more than two decades as
a property manager for a host of
office properties across the city,
Gina VanHorn accepted a new chal-
lenge – managing a portfolio of 18
industrial buildings, more than 2
million square feet for Travelers
Real Estate. Five years later, the
portfolio is 97 percent occupied,
VanHorn is managing other indus-
trial properties as well, and she was
named the 2014 DTZ Property Man-
ager of the Year.
The minute you meet VanHorn,
her friendly, outgoing demeanor
embraces you. VanHorn makes
lasting, positive relationships with
people – be it her clients, tenants,
teammates or
vendors – which
helps her manage
60-plus tenants,
while delivering
high occupancy
levels and even
higher collection
rates.
Part of her job as
property manager
is to make sure
that the property
she is working on is worth sell-
ing and leasing. “Your client has to
trust you’re not going to destroy his
multimillion-dollar asset,” she said.
“That’s a lot to hand over to some-
one.”
In order to make her client happy,
VanHorn spends a lot of time work-
ing on the finances. With a back-
ground in accounting from the
University of Colorado, she said she
spends at least 40 percent of her
time on finances, collecting more
than $800,000 in rent each month.
“You can’t run a property without
money,” she said. “We have 98 to 99
percent collected at the end of each
month, which is something we’ve
been doing for the last five years.”
Recognizing the importance of
making her client happy has gone a
long way for VanHorn. It was one of
the major contributing factors that
led to her recognition as manager of
the year, said Alex Fox, CPM, senior
vice president with DTZ.
Keeping the client happy means
not shying away from a challenge.
Sometimes this means playing
sheriff and enforcing the rules.
“Sometimes you have to be the bad
guy; the job requires it,” she said.
“But you can make sure that you’re
still being friendly as pie.”
A tell-it-to-you-straight attitude
accompanies her friendly smile, and
helped VanHorn cement her place
as a role model and trusted mem-
ber of her company. Since starting
at DTZ, VanHorn has trained three
assistant property managers. After
training her previous two assis-
tants, both accepted opportunities
to manage their own properties.
“My job is to train assistant
property managers so they can
become property managers,” she
said. “Training and teaching is a big
part of my job and something that I
really enjoy.”
Her current assistant property
manager, Elise Danielson, said Van-
Horn’s teaching style gives her free-
dom to tackle new challenges, and
then she oversees and gently cor-
rects any problems. It creates a great
learning environment, she said.
VanHorn is quick to offer praise
of her DTZ teammates, including
Danielson and the properties’ two
brokers, Daniel Bess and Joe Krahn.
“We truly are a team,” she said. “It’s
weird if I don’t talk to Dan for a few
days.”
The industrial market, and Class C
properties in particular, are reaping
the benefits of a strong economy.
When VanHorn took over the portfo-
lio, the properties – all built between
1969 and 1982 – were 68 percent
occupied. Within a few years, the
properties shot up to 97 percent
occupancy.
In those first few years, they
decided in order to make money
they needed to spend money by
doing little things to update the
buildings. During a time with mini-
mal construction projects around
the state, VanHorn forged strong
relationships with a variety of ven-
dors. Today she still uses many for
her big and small projects.
“Between marijuana legalization
and the construction boom, suppli-
ers, laborers and contractors are in
more demand, so things take longer
than they used to,” she said. “This is
when your relationships with your
vendors really matter. If you know
you want to do a seal coating on
some of your parking lots, you can
ask your vendor to pencil you in.
Without those relationships, you’ll
be waiting months to get things
done.”
All of the properties adhere to fed-
eral law and, as such, do not allow
marijuana. However, the legalization
has greatly impacted the industrial
industry, which is mostly seen in
tenant activity, she said.
“This grow thing is throwing the
cycle out of sync,” she said. “Nor-
mally Class C follows Class A and B
space, but not this time. Our occu-
pancies are at a historic high for the
portfolio. It’s hard to ever say you’re
at 100 percent occupancy, but we’ve
come darn close to locking up all 2
million square feet. Right now we
have three vacancies.”
In 2010, DTZ’s efforts were focused
on getting businesses in the space
that could pay the rent. Now that
it’s a landlord market, they can be
pickier. “Brokerage is no longer just
out there to get a check,” she said.
“We now want the right kind of ten-
ant. It’s important.”
Industrial Challenges
A proud Colorado native, VanHorn
spent three years in a small military
town in Georgia, where she started
working in residential property
management. In 1992, she came
back to Colorado and joined Jones
Lang LaSalle to start her career in
commercial real estate. Having pre-
viously worked on all types of office
properties, VanHorn finds many dif-
ferences to managing industrial.
“Industrial tenants are really hard
on their buildings,” she said. “It’s so
different than other property types.
Some of these tenants can really do
some serious damage.”
One unique aspect to indus-
trial properties is that VanHorn is
responsible for the common areas
– parking lots, landscaping and the
fire sprinkler system – and the ten-
ants are responsible for everything
else.
This presents a variety of chal-
lenges while the tenant occupies
the space and on move out. For
example, whenever a cold front
moves in, no matter how many
email reminders she sends, pipes
always end up frozen because a ten-
ant forgets to turn up the heat, she
said.
She also spends a lot more time
explaining what a lease says and
does not say. “For industrial tenants,
we often have to set up meetings
and explain what their responsibili-
ties are, as defined in the lease,” she
said. “We have to connect the dots
without making them angry.”
On move out, after being notori-
ously rough on the space, often
VanHorn bills for property damages.
Typically tenants don’t clean or
repair their space when moving out,
she said. “So we fix everything after
and bill them for it.’”
Profile
Gina VanHorn
The Travelers Real Estate portfolio is made up of 18 warehouse buildings in east Denver.
VanHorn and her daughter, Hannah, at a Colorado Rockies game.
‘My job is to train
assistant property
managers so
they can become
property managers.
Training and
teaching is a big
part of my job and
something that I
really enjoy.’
– Gina VanHorn