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Bio
Tom Fulcher- Vice Chairman, Mid-Atlantic Region Lead, Director, Washington, D.C
Since joining Savills in 1986, Tom has focused on providing real estate services on behalf of major tenants to get the best possible results in the Washington area and throughout the United States. Clients include law firms (Allen & Overy, Arent Fox, Blank Rome, Covington & Burling, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, and WilmerHale), nonprofits and trade associations (Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, Economic Club of Washington, and World Resources Institute), architectural firms (Leo A Daly and Studios Architecture), and professional service firms/corporations (Accenture, the Brattle Group, and Exelon).
Tom was selected “Broker of the Year” by the Greater Washington Commercial Association of Realtors (formerly GWCAR; now CREBA) and is continuously ranked among the top brokers in the Washington metropolitan area. To date, his peers in CREBA have honored him seven times for creating the “Transaction of the Year.”
Tom serves on the company’s Board of Directors, has been a manager of the firm’s Washington, DC, region since 1998, and is the Chair of the firm’s Legal Tenant Practice Group. He served as President of the Commercial Real Estate Broker Association (CREBA) and is still active in that organization. He is a member of the Federal City Council and the Economic Club of Washington and was a founder and president of the board of the Rock Creek Velo, a Washington-based juniors cycling team.
Tom has been cited as an expert resource for many business and trade publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Washington Business Journal and Commercial Property News.
Show Notes
- Representing clients as the “player/coach” model and “manages” brokers in a collaborative environment (5:30)
Origins & Education
- His Dad was a physician and he was born in NYC and his family moved to Washington area when he was 6 yrs. old (6:30)
- Grew up in Falls Church, VA (7:50)
- Dad was Chair of Inova Hospital Surgery Department (8:00)
- Mom was a leader in the community (8:45)
- Initially thought he’d become a doctor (9:20)
- Went to school at St. Stephens in Virginia (10:00)
- Ran cross country and played soccer (10:15)
- Attended William & Mary (10:45)
- Played rugby there
- Studied Psychology (11:45)
- Photography interest (12:00)
First Job- Congressional Aide
- Went to work for Frank Wolf, Congressman (12:45)
- Worked as an administrator for him in his first term in Congress (13:00)
- Reference from his parents (13:15)
- Met his wife while there…she worked for Steny Hoyer (14:00)
- On Capitol Hill from 1981-1983 (14:30)
- A friend suggested he take the GMAT (15:30)
Darden MBA
- Applied to Darden (UVA) and was accepted (15:50)
- Case Study method- Socratic method (16:15)
- Byrne Murphy was a classmate (16:20)
- “Idea that we are stronger together” (teamwork important) (19:30)
- Reference to “Principals, by Ray Dalio” (20:45)
- Art Greenberg offers good perspective (21:30)
- Why real estate?
- At 2nd year of grad school he spoke with several real estate companies (23:20)
- Spalding & Slye, Trammell Crow, LaSalle Partners
- He met Scott Panek of Studley and he saw his potential.
- At 2nd year of grad school he spoke with several real estate companies (23:20)
Studley
- Joined Julien J. Studley Company (25:00)
- Wendy Feldman Block (25:30)
- Recognized he was in a brokerage setting and was buffered by being on a team with senior leaders that brought him in on business where he was included
- First deals were looking at out of market areas for law firms going to other markets (26:00)
- Columbus and Cleveland law firm site searches (27:00)
- Create site opportunities and find a developer if not already there
- Studley Model- Julien Studley started company in early 1950s in NYC and realized that tenants were not represented and started concept (28:45)
- He took senior people in NY and asked them to open new offices in several markets around the country- Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc. (30:15)
- Culture- Encourage a creative approach to representing tenant clients (31:15)
- Model- Senior Broker on the project and junior broker on the phone (32:00)
- Larger opportunities impressed the idea to build teams including analysts and project managers (32:15)
- Caring about the experience of relocating and the long term relationship (35:45)
- More that just brokerage services today (37:20)
- Workforce planning (37:50)
- Perspective of the long run that clients will be coming back for future business (39:00)
- After six years he moved into a different group within the Washington office that was locally based and oriented (40:10)
- Surveyed clients, architects, and consultants for one year and derived the “Studley Lease Management System” to share with prospective tenant clients for about a year (during 1991 crisis time) (41:30)
- He went to prospects and asked to review their leases and recommend ideas to consider in evaluation (42:30)
- Example cited about a rent reset clause (43:15)
- He was hired by two law firms after doing lease audits for them (43:45)
- Law firms require “hashing out” to make decisions for space needs (46:00)
- Law firms are collegial usually and decisions narrow down (46:30)
- Professional administrative people run law firm offices (47:00)
- Attempt to start as early as possible to help client decide whether to move or renegotiate existing space (51:20)
- For top end tenants there are not many options available even though there is considerable inventory of space…not high quality space (53:00)
- Allowance and out of pocket costs for buildout usually considerably different, even if allowance is $180/s.f., the actual cost may be $300/s.f. or higher (53:30)
- Going into 2nd generation space is challenging
- Large offices now going away- big office with conference table is not wanted (55:15)
- More interaction and less buildout with partitions (56:30)
- Law firm strategy of growth- passing on of quality law practice (58:20)
- Client might question whether there is attention to their matter if they respond on Zoom instead of being in their office (58:45)
- Reputation is reinforced with presence in an office (59:00)
- Corporate clients react differently to advice than law firms (1:03:00)
- Story about a corporation with an out of town leader who tramples a local decision that took considerable time to generate (1:03:15)
- Helping clients to get to a decision is critical (1:05:50)
- He doesn’t really know where new business is generated (1:06:10)
- Personalities and Diversity is important today (1:07:00)
- More people now involved in decision now (1:07:15)
- Sometimes they need to be hired “secretly” and go to work and be surreptitious (1:07:30)
- Once hired one gets close to the client he tries to test the boundaries (1:09:00)
- David Lipson does GSA work (1:10:15)
- Represented USDOT and then competed for national brokerage relationships with GSA (1:10:50)
- A bubble around GSA work and Tom is not involved (1:11:15)
Savills Merger
- Savills acquires Studley(1:12:30)
- 2003- Several senior partners bought out management nationally and he was involved (1:13:00)
- Savills saw Studley as a US opportunity. Studley saw Savills opening up international opportunities and connections
- Savills founded in the 1850s for estate sales from mortuary science to real estate in the UK (1:15:00)
- Company is not “corporate” in culture (1:16:00)
- Increase in support including business development tools- presentations and graphics (1:17:00)
- Technology solutions are much stronger now (1:18:00)
Markets and Brokerage
- Office market (1:19:20)
- Companies still see value in having office space (1:19:50)
- Still work to do for relocating tenants (1:20:20)
- Workplace configuration and understanding (1:20:30)
- Subleasing and representing landlords is very difficult now (1:21:00)
- Story about client that went from 50,000 s.f. to 4,000 s.f. because their business became mostly remote (1:21:30)
- Fundamental shift- some buildings become valueless (1:21:50)
- Residential conversion just cannot work (1:22:00)
- DC was developed as just an office district in the CBD, so a fundamental change needs to take place (1:22:40)
- When leases expire and loans mature buildings will either be redeveloped or razed for a different use (1:23:30)
- He needs to know the wherewithal of prospective landlords (1:25:10)
- Brokerage evolution (1:28:30)
- When did it not take a long time to get deals done? (1:28:45)
- When he started very few people had MBAs or any level of serious education (1:29:20)
- Still “boiler rooms” that spend more time on commission agreement than leasing (1:29:50)
- Workplace- Asking client how they work…movement in the office or layout thinking (1:30:20)
- Made choice to have private offices for each senior broker for confidentiality (1:34:00)
- “What is the resource I need to win the deal?” (1:37:20)
- Do Not Call List- Clients are assigned to this list because they are “encumbered” (1:37:45)
- He has not been approached to leave, primarily he thinks because he’s in management (1:39:00)
- Differences between managing and brokerage (1:40:00)
- Administrative decisions (1:40:15)
- Conflict resolutions (1:40:30)
- Five people in management in the office, yet he is the regional head manager (1:41:00)
- Managing the “environment” not the people (1:41:50)
- Predicting revenues is very hard as the client drives decisions (1:43:30)
- Uses golf as an analogy of the company’s business results (1:44:40)
- Savills has streams of revenue that is more stable in Europe (1:46:15)
- What makes a good broker?
- Extroverts, introverts, analysts, and great salespeople all fit (1:46:30)
- Sense about people- high EQ (1:47:45)
- Empathy
- Type A person (1:48:00)
- Takes up to 10 years to become good at being a good broker- tenant rep business is especially challenging (1:48:30)
- Ask hardest possible questions of both client and prospective landlords to avoid situations to go bad (1:50:00)
- Clients can be difficult enough not to want to continue working with them (1:51:20)
Inspirations and Personal
- People who inspired him
- Peter Speier– Leader of Studley office when he started inspired him (1:54:00)
- Team- Art Greenberg, David Lipson, Julie Rayfield, Adam Brecker
- Vernon Knarr, John Kyle and Nick Pappas in the 1990s merger of Vector into Studley (1:56:00)
- Business morphed into representing buyer/users (1:56:45)
- Mandarin Oriental Hotel financing JV with Legg Mason in 1998 (1:58:00)
- Wins
- WilmerHale relationship- 15 years ago he assembled their space in three buildings on Pennsylvania Ave. and relet their former space at 2445 M St. (1:59:15)
- Retained again to look at a site at GWU that gives views toward the Capitol and Virginia and they negotiated a lease with Boston Properties at 2100 Pennsylvania Ave. NW and signed lease before zoning approval- 10 years in the making for this relocation (2:01:00)
- Started with an idea in 2013 and just occupied in January, 2023
- Retained again to look at a site at GWU that gives views toward the Capitol and Virginia and they negotiated a lease with Boston Properties at 2100 Pennsylvania Ave. NW and signed lease before zoning approval- 10 years in the making for this relocation (2:01:00)
- WilmerHale relationship- 15 years ago he assembled their space in three buildings on Pennsylvania Ave. and relet their former space at 2445 M St. (1:59:15)
- Losses
- Advised a client over 30 years and their landlord made a proposal that they recommended against and the client went with another firm due to a change in his relationship (2:06:00)
- Surprise
- Client wants to keep relationship secret for work in another city (2:07:20)
- Life priorities
- Bike ride to and from work- 7 miles each way (2:08:45)
- Reading- Posts weekly (2:10:20)
- Untold Power: The Fascinating Rise and Complex Legacy of First Lady Edith Wilson (Woodrow Wilson’s wife)
- The Wager
- Outlive, by Peter Attia
- His wife is on nonprofit boards- Sitar Center, American Jewish World Service (2:09:20)
- Advice to 25 yr. old self- “Do the thing that is engaging and fulfilling” (2:13:00)
- Billboard Statement- “Love it!” (2:14:40)
Postscript
- Rameez Munawar Takeaways
- Take care of your people
- Problem solving industry
- Value of taking on a leadership role in his career
- Learnings
- Workplace management- collaboration
- Reputation
- Overcoming inertia to bring people back to the office
- Costs affect the return to the office
- Main drivers to the work from home movement
- Will we understand the impact of the pandemic over time
- Example of “problem solving”- 2100 Pennsylvania- WilmerHale
- NPR project reference
- Role of formal education in commercial real estate has increased significantly
- Growth of institutional investment market has increased the sophistication of the industry
- Engineering background correlates with problem solving
- 2nd generation space- proposals of $170/s.f. of concessions
- Example of a 15 yr. old buildout that it needs to be torn out to “show better” yet not looking at the environmental benefit of minor retrofit
