Transferable skills

He's been doing deals on the Polish real estate market for the past four and a half years but now he's moving on. Soon the focus of his job will, initially at least, be more on putting up rather than filling up Warsaw's office stock. Jeroen van der Toolen of DTZ talked to Eurobuild about his next role and the plans he and his new firm have for the capital

Belgian developer, the Ghelamco Group, was one of the first to hit the headlines in 2003, with the sale of their Business Centre Bitwy Warszawskiej office building to Austrian property fund Europolis Invest. As with a number of other Ghelamco deals, agents DTZ were closely involved in the transaction and from next month, the connection between the two will be accentuated when Jeroen van der Toolen becomes Managing Director of the developer's Polish division.

Flowing information
"The interesting thing about being an agent," says van der Toolen, "is that you're always in the middle of the information flow and as head of a department you can look at strategy and change it along with fluctuations in the market. The stress is very much on hitting targets and doing deals on a daily basis and you can minimize risks by diversifying the agency's portfolio. As a developer there is a much higher risk as your decisions have to be informed by a five-year perspective. You're going to be an investor and are going to spend millions of dollars according to a long-term business plan. You have to deal with all phases of development, beginning with architectural design, acquiring plots, obtaining permits, construction periods, executing budgets, coordination of marketing and then leasing projects. In addition, you think of the building that you deliver as an institutional product for future investors. The energy of information flow will be different [working for Ghelamco] than in an agency but with development you can realise more tangible products, which will still be there fifty years from now."
The outgoing Deputy Director of DTZ in Poland, refers to his four-year stint there as "a fantastic learning curve" and he could be about to hoist himself onto another, at a firm he has had very close dealings with over the years. Any time a deal at Ghelamco's Cybernetiki office building in Warsaw was announced, van der Toolen's name was invariably a glance away on the press release. Real estate agents commonly move on, quite often to their competitors and at times to other players in the market, as DTZ's own recent history shows but it's difficult to recall many other examples of career advancement, such as van der Toolen's, where the passage from one firm to another has been so smooth. He simply says that "it's the most logical step for an agent to go to a developer".

Transferring skills
As van der Toolen's comments above indicate, the real estate agent is essentially 'the man in the middle', a status far away from what a developer strives for. Diffusing conflicts of interest, getting two sides to see things similarly, clinching that handshake, are the fleeting manifestations of an agent's work, (as well the money of course). The developer's however, stamped in the earth, are the hulks of concrete people live and work in for decades at a time. Vision, (even the tunnel variety), seeing things your way in the first instance, others' the next, leaving a legacy: these qualities are arguably what a developer needs to get the job done. So how are an agent's skills to be transferred to development?
"Some developers pay most of their attention to technical people or architects, which means that certain buildings don't meet end-users' requirements and stay vacant for years. One of the important things about being an agent is that you have daily contact with end users and know what their needs and concerns may be. Cooperation between an agent and developer is necessary for a project's success. If a developer is flexible and really listens well to end-users through an agent, you can even lease ninety per cent of a building, two months after it's been delivered, which in today's market conditions is a rarity. The key to success for a developer is to have the best price, quality and efficiency-ratio and the right location."

New projects
He is about to get the chance to put his money where his mouth is. The sale of Bitwy Warszawskiej will be followed shortly by others in Ghelamco's portfolio and the funds generated will go into some serious re-investment. As MD of Ghelamco, van der Toolen will be overseeing five new projects in the Warsaw area this year and the company's first moves into the Moscow market. Of the Polish developments, construction of one, the Crown Point office building, is already under way having started right at the end of last year. Work on the others will begin at various points in the second and third quarters of 2003 and will include for the first time for Ghelamco, a retail warehouse in Janki, just south of the capital. The developer is also currently negotiating with an end-user, with a view to constructing a company house for them with warehousing facilities, not far from the Jerozolimskie corridor, south-west of the city. If built, this will be Ghelamco's only non-speculative project of the year.
"Through the combination of a commercial and flexible approach we will win tenants. We will also attract them by providing them with a corporate identity, for instance if they wish to have a logo on the building," says van der Toolen.

Bye for now...
As for DTZ, the company he is leaving behind, how does he feel staff there will fare without him?
"A junior team here has grown into a senior one over the past year, so I feel everything is up and running very nicely, which is why it's difficult to leave."
His replacement will be Erik Drukker, returning to familiar territory, which he left in 2001 for Jones Lang LaSalle's warehouse section. "I think his heart is in the office market," says van der Toolen, "and he's coming to manage a team of professionals".