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Julie Gray
Partner and executive vice president, McCall & Almy
Age: 52
Industry experience: 25 years
For 12 years, it seemed as if all Julie Gray did was work in commercial real estate and play rugby. That’s how Gray remembers the early stages of her career in the Midwest, balancing the demands of brokerage work at a small Minneapolis firm with her role as a member of the U.S. women’s national rugby team. Graduate school brought her to Boston in the 1990s and a part-time job with tenant representation brokerage McCall & Almy. That turned into a permanent position, and Gray was named a partner in 2016.
Gray works with big institutional clients, such as Partners Healthcare, Northeastern University and Berklee College of Music, on real estate projects that are changing the physical environment of Greater Boston for decades. Gray has brokered transactions topping 800,000 square feet in the past year alone.
Q: As a tenant rep specialist, how does your negotiating strategy change in a landlord’s market like this one?
A: It’s definitely a landlord’s market, but when I think about it, I’m not sure the negotiating strategy is that different. If the real estate is more expensive, you try and find out if the client can look at a market with lower costs. Is there a smaller footprint, a shared workspace, a work from home initiative? If you look at it broadly, real estate costs are pretty small. Real estate costs might go up 20 percent, but that might have a half–a–percent impact on your financial statements. You just try to get the costs as low as possible. If their business strategy is sound, if real estate costs go up 10 percent, it’s going to have some impact but it’s not going to make or break the company. They never like it, but sometimes the market is in their favor and sometimes it’s not.
Q: Do a lot of companies have to consider neighborhoods that weren’t part of their original search?
A: I think so. Bose Corp. went to the Boston Landing site. Initially maybe they wanted to be downtown or the Seaport, but they found an opportunity there that was attractive. That’s an example of looking at a different market for a big block of space and being a little more nimble, lowering their costs and getting a more modern working environment for attracting talent. I think they’re going to achieve that there, ultimately.
Q: As employee recruitment becomes more important to real estate decisions, how are companies adjusting who’s involved in the search committee?
A: I mainly work with big institutions like health care and universities, and they’ve always been consensus-driven in terms of decision-making. In the for-profit world, I’ve seen the focus on hiring employees as the market is on an uptick in general. The real estate makes a difference. These employees may not want cars, they want good transportation. The HR department may be weighing in, saying there’s a good talent market here.
Q: Landlords have made on-site amenities a big priority. Which ones seem to be most valuable to prospective tenants?
A: What I see are amenities where they’ll end up saving the tenant money – say, a conference facility they can share and the tenant doesn’t pay rent on it and uses it four times a month. For workers, they also want things in the building like fitness centers and food options, so they don’t have people rushing all over the place. You almost have to have it.
Q: Now that major landlords are offering coworking spaces of their own, how is their product different from WeWork?
A: They are trying to come up with the same model. It’s hard for them to be as flexible as WeWork because it’s just within their own buildings, but they have to do it. They’re going to end up losing tenants to WeWork and they don’t want that. WeWork was in that space first and seems to have just a broader array of options. Landlords build out spec suites: space ready to go, and have flexible lease terms to do something short-term. They get a little more revenue and take on a little more risk on the turnover. They are hoping they will turn into a permanent tenant in the building.
Q: Commercial real estate was even more a male-dominated field early in your career. What influence has McCall & Almy Executive Vice President Mary Lentz had on your advancement?
A: I can’t say enough great things about her. She is probably the smartest person I know. Real estate is a male-dominated industry. It just is. For her to be as successful as she was, she had to be the smartest. She trusted me and it gave me confidence. She trusted my judgment and deal-making. Knowing the respect she had gave me a lot of confidence early in my career, and I try to do the same for other women. It’s amazing what that does for peoples’ career trajectory. I wouldn’t be where I am now if it weren’t for Mary. She was instrumental in making me feel like I can survive in the Boston real estate industry.
Q: What prompted your initial interest in commercial real estate, and why has it made sense to make a long-term commitment to one firm?
A: You kind of just take what job you can get after college, and I was happy to be in real estate. There was an element of math and finance, which I was good at, and the people skills.
More important than that, it’s working with people you respect. The people at McCall & Almy are some of the best people I’ve ever met. They’re like family for me. I’ve said this to people who are interviewing here: I never wake up and dread going to work. I’ve had other jobs where I felt like that.
There’s not a lot of turnover at McCall & Almy. Every once in a while, someone will think the grass is greener, but I think they regret that in some respects. I do like commercial real estate because you see what’s going on in the city and you read about it in the paper and see it going on: the physical world of the city.
Gray’s Five Favorite Female Artists:
- Georgia O’Keeffe
- Sonia Delaunay
- Gene Kloss
- Blanche Lazzell
- Lee Krasner
