CREJ - Property Management Quarterly - May 2015
After more than two decades as a property manager for a host of office properties across the city, Gina VanHorn accepted a new challenge – 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 industrial properties as well, and she was named the 2014 DTZ Property Manager 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 selling 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 someone.” In order to make her client happy, VanHorn spends a lot of time working on the finances. With a background 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 member of her company. Since starting at DTZ, VanHorn has trained three assistant property managers. After training her previous two assistants, 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 VanHorn’s teaching style gives her freedom to tackle new challenges, and then she oversees and gently corrects 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 portfolio, 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 minimal construction projects around the state, VanHorn forged strong relationships with a variety of vendors. Today she still uses many for her big and small projects. “Between marijuana legalization and the construction boom, suppliers, 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 federal 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. “Normally Class C follows Class A and B space, but not this time. Our occupancies 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 tenant. 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 previously worked on all types of office properties, VanHorn finds many differences 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 industrial properties is that VanHorn is responsible for the common areas – parking lots, landscaping and the fire sprinkler system – and the tenants are responsible for everything else. This presents a variety of challenges 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 tenant 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 responsibilities are, as defined in the lease,” she said. “We have to connect the dots without making them angry.” On move out, after being notoriously 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.’” One major perk of managing industrial space is the schedule. Office, retail and multifamily all can have more demanding hours because more people need to access the buildings more often. While she does have some tenants that operate 24/7, including a limo and shuttle service, her daily duties are more relaxed. “Every building, property and client has a different personality,” VanHorn said. In her spare time, the single-mom enjoys spending time with her 17-year-old daughter Hannah and off-roading in her “dream Jeep,” a Silver Jeep Wrangler Sahara, which she got last October after years of pining. She hopes to go off-roading once or twice a month this summer, and belongs to Mile-Hi Jeep Club, a nonprofit organization that is active in fundraising events. “This year, I am chairing the Kids Activities committee for our annual All-4-Fun event, which is a fundraiser for the Children’s Hospital Burn Camp,” she said.