Russ Webb | Expanding Your Business’ Footprint During COVID
On this week’s episode of Around Flower Mound, we speak with special guest, Russ Webb. Russ is widely known as a commercial real estate rockstar and also serves on the National Alumni Board at the Texas Tech Alumni Association. After a successful career in the oil and fuel industry, Russ joined Silver Oak Commercial Realty in 2011 as a Managing Partner and has since transacted over $150 million worth of commercial real estate.
Russ says, “I would say the biggest factor to being successful in business is managing your time and being able to get people to trust you with handling their assets. A lot of people who own buildings in Flower Mound and some of the suburbs, that's their retirement investment for a long time. So, you have to act as if you're in their shoes.”
We chat about his favorite things about Flower Mound, as well as:
Silver Oak Commercial Realty
The draw of Flower Mound from a commercial perspective
How COVID has changed the direction of commercial real estate
His position on the Texas Tech National Alumni Board
And more
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Nicole Smith Woodard: Today, I am so excited to introduce you to an absolutely fantastic Flower Mound resident. As you know Around Flower Mound is all about bringing light to community leaders, business owners, parents, and charities within our fantastic community. We in Flower Mound are so blessed to have a neighbor and fellow resident who is widely known as a commercial real estate rockstar, and also serves on the National Alumni Board at the Texas Tech Alumni Association. Welcome my friend Russ Webb.
Russ Webb: Hey, Nicole, how are you?
Nicole: I'm great. Hey, thanks for taking the time to be here.
Russ: Absolutely, absolutely.
Nicole: Well, I am so grateful to have been introduced to Russ through our Cross Timbers Rotary we have just a fantastic Rotary Club. He's been living in Flower Mound since 2000. He has two children who both graduated from Flower Mound High School once a senior at A&M and one's at Baylor. And I'm so excited to know him. I'm going to share a little bit about his professional bio, and then we're going to dig into the questions. So Russ Webb joined Silver Oak Commercial Realty in 2011 is the Managing Partner. Previously he was Vice President at Stream Realty where he began in 2001.
After a successful career in the oil and fuel industry, with companies such as Shell, Citgo, and Texaco. He's been voted Salesman of the Year he was recognized as Top 30 Under 35, Dallas Business Journal's Heavy Hitters List, earned all kinds of awards as he has transacted well over $150 million worth of commercial real estate here in the last 20 years. He's been quoted in Globe Street and CCI and periodicals over the past several years and again, a very busy guy. Thank you for joining us today. I know you're my go-to guy for commercial real estate here in Flower Mound. And our audience, I think it's going to be very interested in this. So before we get going too far, in that, I want to know, what is your favorite thing about Flower Mound?
Russ: Well, I think Flower Mound, is a family-friendly community, I think we've got an excellent School District. I think we've got a great board of trustees with the LISD School District, we've got a great superintendent. And I think that having a good school district, as you probably know, from residential, it makes for a good bedroom community and in the school district, I think drives people, you know, to fly around because of what we have in LISD. School Board. I think it's one of the best in the State of Texas. And, I think that's a big contributor to why Flower Mound's a great place to live.
Nicole: I totally agree. And the data suggests that as well. So you have been quite successful in several categories. You're a successful business owner, you're a very generous community volunteer. I've seen you I know you've served on the board of the Flower Mound Chamber, certainly, you're active in Rotary and with the Rotary Youth Clubs. You're a father and you're active in all kinds of organizations. But let's start with your business. Tell us about Silver Oak Commercial Realty. What do y'all do? And who do you want to be a hero to?
Russ: Well, we formed Silver Oak in June of 2011. And I've got three other partners, Deb Pearman, and Leanne Brown who came from Glacier Commercial, who did a lot of transactions in South Lake and Grapevine and then my other partner is, Jim Leatherwood, who had a 10-year career with Henry S. Miller and we were at a point in our careers where we were just, you know, we we had worked for the big firms, but we were ready to set up our own shop, sort of a commercial real estate firm. And we're a boutique. We can do things the big firms like CBRE and TrammellCrow and Stream can do, but we're just a smaller, mid-sized market. We do a lot in Denton County, Flower Mound, Lewisville, we do a lot in South Lake, Grapevine in mid-city, Fort Worth. We do some in Dallas as well. And then we also go as far west as Abilene, and we're starting to do more farm and ranch transactions around Possum Kingdom, and Young County. So we're kind of a jack of all trades. We do industrial, retail office, tenant representation, buyer representation. And we also do a lot of investments.
Nicole: I love that. So you're an expert like you said in this whole area. We'll talk about commercial real estate. And in general, there's a couple of things you and I talked about that are obviously changing the face, some of it real-time literally, but specifically as it relates to Flower Mound, what's the draw to so many here from a commercial perspective?
The Commercial Real Estate Market In Flower Mound, TX
Russ: Well, I think a lot of it is you've got a lot of small business owners that own smaller office buildings, in some retail centers, and, you know, we've seen a lot of growth in the last you know, four to five years in Flower Mound, especially along the 24-99 corridor as far as retail and office development, and I just think, you know, it's been a good place for people to come because again, I think it's one of the elite communities. I put it right up there with South Lake and Grapevine. You, you kind of have people that they live in Flower Mound but they either office in Flower Mound or surrounding areas, Lewisville, you know, sounds like great, man. So that's, that's kind of the big thing. And I think a lot of people, you know, like having those smaller office buildings where they operate their own business, but they also have tenants to complement the particular building that they own.
Nicole: Absolutely. And there's still some land left to be developed, right. I mean, as far as the Lakeside Business District,
Russ: Well, surprisingly, we just sold during COVID, we sold one of the biggest tracks on the Lewisville/Flower Mound border, it was 75 acres of industrial property. And I put it under contract after having the listing probably four years in Lakeside and in closed and about 60 days ago, but industrial for some reason, during this COVID or post COVID is kind of the hot ticket because of e-commerce and everything else. And probably when I had that under contract, I probably had, I don't know, four or five different brokerage firms in Dallas Fort Worth called because they told me that was the last piece of industrial property that's in that Lakeside area. Wow. Which was shocking.
Nicole: Congratulations, that was an accomplishment, especially when you think you've worked on it for four years for it to see all the way through. But you mentioned industrial, so define what that looks like for somebody who doesn't who isn't familiar with Flower Mound. I mean, when when I hear industrial, we're obviously not talking about factories.
Russ: So you're mainly talking about distribution, if you look at the Lakeside Business District and Flower Mound that kind of complements and goes over and part of Lewisville. And you've got a lot of the big box distribution and a lot of those people have come and made the main office, an industrial park in Lakeside in, in it's just gotten more popular. Because when I say the big box, it's you know, it's now 30-foot clear height with several dock guys and in a small amount of office and it's mainly is distribution. It's not the manufacturing, it's the distribution of, you know, goods that come into and from especially being in close proximity to Dallas/Fort Worth. That's a big plus for the likes of that business district in Flower Mound.
Nicole: I love that. Well, you and I were talking before we started recording obviously COVID has changed the direction of commercial real estate. Speak to that just a bit.
Russ: Well, COVID has had you know, we were rocking along. And then of course, like all of us COVID kind of blindsided us. And what's happened is you've seen commercial office was really going well. And retail was as well. You've seen that take a big hit, restaurants, retail, and office buildings because what you're saying on the office side is more people traditionally, that made it one particular office building, they're now going virtual. And I don't think that's going to be forever. But I do think it's something that is going to be here for the next six months to a year. So we've tried to help our clients that have office buildings get creative as far as ways to either lower the base rent or come up with some kind of free rent or something that that is advantageous to get activity because that retail, restaurant, and office sector has been hit pretty hard. Now like I said, industrial all over the Metroplex you know, investment salespeople wanting to buy industrial type investments, flex properties. That's been red hot during COVID and post COVID up to year to date, basically, that's been our, our big hitter because, again, e-commerce and Amazon and all the people that have come to Dallas/Fort Worth has affected the whole Dallas/Fort Worth market.
Nicole: Absolutely. You mentioned it earlier, too, just the proximity to DFW International Airport has got to just be something that's going to sustain the popularity of this area and those properties that we have, forever.
Russ: Oh, absolutely. Yeah,
But you know, retail has taken a hit, and especially the restaurants and that's unfortunate, but we hope we'll get over the hump on this but it is as far as something that's really affecting commercial real estate during COVID. It's been the retail, restaurants, and office buildings that have taken the biggest hit right now.
Nicole: Right. So diversification like you've described where your team isn't just based in this area, you've expanded your footprint to include other communities, other industries. I mean, that's just to me a sign of a successful business person.
Russ: Yeah. And a lot of it we do we represent people that are looking to buy large pieces of land. And again, it goes back to industrial, we've got a lot of equipment manufacturers that are coming in that have called on our firm to represent them in finding large tracts of land. And again, that's a good and bad thing. But really, Flower Mound is built up as far as their industrial sub-market. And you're seeing more move towards Alliance, west of Texas Motor Speedway all the way that like Boyd, Texas along 114. That's, that's kind of been a hot pocket right now.
Nicole: We're in West Texas. So I think that makes a nice segue. Absolutely. Obviously, you went to school at Texas Tech and obviously had great success there. And so talk a little bit about this position that you hold on the National Alumni Board, what does that involve? What does that provide for, and share a little bit about that?
Russ: Well, we, it's a board I've been on for the last, I'd probably say the last three or four years. And I was elected a second time, just this past year. And what we do is the Alumni Association as a board, we were the governing body as far as financials, bringing in, you know, current students that may have parents that didn't go to Tech, but also reaching out to alumni, having fundraisers, where we have golf tournaments, all around the state, and really all around the United States. And, and having people come back and be a part of the University after they graduate, and also students that are seniors that are about to graduate, we want them to join the Alumni Association as well and be big contributors. You know, after they graduate from Texas Tech, so it's been a great board to be a part of. And, you know, we've had our challenges, like every other board, I'm sure. As far as dealing with this COVID right now, football games and everything else. And we're in one of our big projects is the Frazier Alumni Pavilion at Jones Stadium, we just renovated that but we're in the final swing of trying to raise the money to finish that project because we built a second story and we've renovated the Alumni Center that people come to for football games and special events. So that's, that's been a big project, but like everybody, other boards, and people's careers, that's been hard. With COVID asking for money, but we're we seem to be doing okay.
Nicole: Well, good. Well, they're in good hands with you on that team? For sure. Well, I mean, you've experienced some real successes personally and professionally. And this is just more, you know, get to know a little bit more about who you are, what is it? What do you believe makes some successful, while others struggle?
Building a Successful Business in Flower Mound
Russ: I think to be a success in business, you've got to do what you say you're gonna do. And you've got to have, you know, what we've been doing. Besides myself, and my partners, we've probably got over 75 years of experience combined. And, you know, I just think, you know, when people call or have a listing, they know that I've been doing this so long that I will give them an honest answer of the best investment, whether they're purchasing a building, or whether they're going to lease a building.
And I just think, to be successful, you've got to manage your time well, and you've got to be able to, you've got to be able to network, and you've got to, you know, there are some clients we've got that we've had for 20 plus years. And, you know, there are transactions we've done six or seven times in the last 20 years, as they've grown as a company. So it's been fun to do that. But you know, I would just say the biggest thing is, is managing your time and being able to get people to trust you with handling their asset because you know, that a lot of these people that own buildings and Flower Mound and some of the suburbs, you know, that's their retirement investment for a long, long time. So you have to act as if you're in their shoes.
Nicole: Well, and I'm what I'm hearing you say he didn't use this word, but it's you know, it's about the relationship. And obviously, one of the ways I know you and your partners build relationships is through serving in the community. Absolutely. So what are some of the things that like if somebody were new to Flower Mound, and they wanted to get plugged in right away and serve and get to know other people like you were what are some of the things or some of the criteria you would encourage people to consider if they're making that decision with how they can best structure their time?
Russ: We're big on being part of the Flower Mound chamber. One of our partners, LeANN Brown is she's Chairwoman of the Grapevine Chamber and has been involved on the board of that chamber for a long time. But I think, Flower Mound's got and Lewisville, you know, those are two big chamber groups and they do lots of activities. And I always tell people, if they're wanting to get plugged into Flower Mound, they definitely need to join the Flower Mound Chamber just because there are so many activities in so many ways to get involved. And it's definitely helped our business.
Nicole: I totally agree. Okay, so here's a question for you. So what books? Or what books are you currently reading or what podcasts are you're currently listening to that you would recommend to others?
Russ: Well, believe it or not Swimming With The Sharks by Harvey Mackay. And that's been one of my books. And then I haven't read this. But since Donald Trump has been our president, I'm also reading The Art of The Deal. It has a lot to do with everyday business on how we, you know, how we deal with cities and, and groups in getting things done in it. And that's the other thing, you've got to deal with a lot of these cities in the town of Flower Mound to get some of these developments done. And you've got to be able to know the avenues to take your client through to get their project approved. So those have been really hit home.
Nicole: Absolutely. Well, I've seen you. You're the master of such. So I love that. Well, I just appreciate your time so much. Is there anything else you want to share before we sign off today? Well, I
Russ: just think that you know, Flower Mound, you know, when I first moved there in 2000, there was, you know, 24-99 was barely a road and there were no restaurants there was no retail. But you know, now, you know, you look ahead, now it's 20 years later, you have retail, you have restaurants to go to, it's just a vibrant community and you've got more housing coming in, and you've got more senior housing, you've got more rooftops coming in. And I still think to the west of Flower Mound there's still a lot of development to be had between Flower Mound and 35. So I just, I think it's a great place to raise a family and come to but I also think it's a great place to do business. Absolutely.
Nicole: Well, thank you so much for joining us today on The Around Flower Mound podcast. How can people connect with you if they want to learn more?
Russ: Well, they can call me I always have my cell phone number at 817-233-7100. And our website is www.SilverOakCRE.com. Or they can email me at rwebb@SilverOakCRE.com. And I would love to hear from anybody that has a question or wants us to do a market comp or help them with anything that's that has to do with commercial real estate in Flower Mound or the surrounding areas. We'd love to help them.
Nicole: Well, you do a great job. And I appreciate you so much as a person as a fellow Rotarian. And certainly thank you for taking the time to come on the podcast today.
Russ: Well, thank you, Nicole. I appreciate it very much. Thanks for all you do.
