When 2020 started, retail broker Frank Volk figured he’d spend this week in back-to-back meetings and networking with clients and prospects at the annual International Council of Shopping Center’s RECon trade show in Las Vegas. The event was called off because of the coronavirus pandemic but it still is a big week for the 20-year industry veteran.
Volk is opening the first Las Vegas office for SRS Real Estate Partners, a Dallas-based retail brokerage and advisory firm. He and his colleagues would be in the office this week except it is still being constructed at the Town Center development on the southern end of the Vegas Strip.
“It’s definitely surreal,” Volk said of his city being empty during this traditional week of the annual RECon trade show, the largest such event in the United States centered on retail real estate. “Having had the biggest event, a global event, here, it was always just such a benefit.”
It was during the time he spent working from home while most of Las Vegas, including the famous strip of Las Vegas Boulevard, was shut down that Volk took stock of his career, the past 14 years of which he had spent at RKF and successor Newmark Knight Frank. He decided it was time for a change and joined SRS earlier this month.
“It came out of a period of reflection” during the pandemic, Volk said of his move. “I started thinking about it right about the time I started losing my mind” during the shutdown.
In his more than 20 years of experience helping fill shops and assisting retailers seeking new spots along the Las Vegas Strip, Volk has completed transactions with an aggregate value of more than $1 billion. He’s represented Nordstrom Rack, Michael Jordan Steakhouse, The Standard Hotels, Club Tattoo, Five Guys and other companies such as Marshall Retail Group.
“Some might think we’re crazy to launch a new office in Vegas in the middle of the pandemic, but with an industry veteran like Frank, combined with a company like SRS, we know we’re not gambling,” Garrett Colburn, executive vice president and managing principal in SRS’ Newport Beach, California, office, said in a statement.
Volk said he’ll start the Las Vegas office with two or three brokers and then add a couple more who likely would focus on the Las Vegas suburbs, where he sees an opportunity to grow SRS’ business. The office ultimately would have about five brokers. Volk said SRS brokers from other offices including in Arizona and Southern California already have been doing net-lease transactions and investment sales in Vegas for years.
“We don’t intend Vegas to be a giant market,” he said. “We’re going to right-size it to the market.”
Volk said he’s looking forward to seeing the Vegas strip when it reopens because retail is such a key component of the district known for its gambling operations. Casinos in Nevada have been closed since March 18, the day after Gov. Steve Sisolak ordered all nonessential businesses to close. Casino operators are hopeful to begin opening in June but have not been given the go-ahead from the state yet to do so.
As other restrictions are eased, Volk was preparing to meet for lunch Wednesday with a client who flew in from California, Volk’s first such face-to-face meeting in more than two months.
“You’re going to see people start to move about again,” he said.
In commercial real estate, in-person meetings are critical to deals getting done, Volk said.
“At the end of the day, real estate is a kick-the-rocks business,” he said. “The retailers want to see the sights and the neighborhood, and landlords want to see the operation.”
Volk is optimistic the retail components of the large casino hotels and resorts will bounce back quickly, Volk said. “The market was very healthy before the COVID crisis,” he said. “I would suspect we’ll get back there.”
A Cleveland native who moved to Las Vegas “when there wasn’t shopping in Vegas on the strip” and just before the Mirage opened in late 1989, Volk said he’s watched the city become a retail Mecca.
“There’s been dramatic change. We weren’t even a footnote in the retail world,” he said. “Now we’re one of the premier markets.”