Commercial Real Estate Today: Ira Singer Of Mosaic Construction On 5 Things You Need to Create a Highly Successful Career in the Commercial Real Estate Industry Today

An interview with Aron Weiner

Contribute to a Positive Environment: People want to work with honest, genuine hard-working people who value their community and the people in it. We are committed to charity work and to making the world a better place.

The commercial real estate industry is a dynamic and challenging landscape that offers enormous potential for success. However, it requires a unique blend of skills, knowledge, and aptitude to truly excel. How does one establish themselves in such a competitive field? What does it take to consistently rise to the top in commercial real estate? How does one rise above the headwinds that are challenging the commercial real estate industry today? In this interview series, we are talking to commercial real estate professionals, brokers, investors, leaders of Real Estate Firms and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), as well as anyone who’s found significant success in this industry.

As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Ira Singer, Founder & Chief Marketing and Communications Officer of Mosaic Construction, a national commercial, multifamily and retail design/build firm based in Northbrook, Illinois. With more than 30+ years of construction industry expertise, Ira leads new business development, marketing, management of trade partner relationships, and works with clients to transform their buildings to better fit the needs of their tenants, residents, staff and visitors. Ira is also a highly-respected speaker and thought leader on multifamily, commercial and residential design/build construction.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would like to learn a bit about your origin story. Can you share with us a bit about your childhood and how you grew up?

I grew up as one of four children with loving and supportive parents in Glenview, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago. My childhood was filled with lots of family fun, time spent with grandparents, cousins, and extended family, as well as playing sports, participating in lots of school clubs, going on family vacations, and enjoying summer camp. I was raised by parents who contributed to various community organizations and volunteered their time to help others in need. My siblings and I learned at an early age that helping others is part of being a citizen of the community.

Can you share with us the ‘backstory’ of how you got into the real estate business?

After graduating college, I worked in sales for a home improvement company. This experience taught me the importance of representing great products and quality workmanship and the importance of running a business built on trust and not sales gimmicks. Later on, I founded my own contracting company and expanded upon the types of products and services being offered beyond home improvements. That growth mindset opened up relationships to owners, operators and property management firms that were involved in commercial real estate and the various asset classes within the sector. Our team today is hired for design/build, remodeling and general contracting services for many different types of commercial and multifamily real estate assets.

Can you tell us about your company and what makes it stand out?

Mosaic Construction LLC is a national commercial, multifamily and retail design/build firm with three distinct yet collaborative brands: Mosaic Construction, Design Construction Concepts, and Cannabis Facility Construction. For more than 30 years, Mosaic Construction has provided ground-up, tenant improvement, and capital project work in the multifamily and commercial industry, with a focus on community, amenity, and unit upgrades, and has completed renovation work on both the interior and exterior of many different types of commercial real estate assets. Design Construction Concepts is our luxury brand, providing highly customized design/build services for residential, commercial, and boutique retail. Finally, Cannabis Facility Construction provides turnkey design/build services in the cannabis industry, bringing industry leading cannabis dispensaries, cultivation facilities, and infusion and processing labs to cannabis legal states. What makes us stand out is that we are relationship based, opportunity driven, and client focused, and this is clear from the breadth of our portfolio and asset type experience.

Can you tell our readers about the most exciting new projects you are working on now?

Mosaic Construction is currently working on four franchised veterinary clinics in Colorado and Texas; and an extra-curricular S.T.E.M. enrichment studio in Illinois for children 2–14 years old.

Leveraging Cannabis Facility Construction’s expertise working on more than 90 projects in 14 states across the country, we are currently building state of the art cannabis cultivation facilities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania; a top-of-the-line cannabis infusion lab in Illinois; and multiple trend setting dispensaries in Connecticut, Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey.

As with any career path, the commercial real estate industry comes with its own set of challenges. Could you elaborate on some of the significant challenges you faced in your career and how you managed to overcome them?

The last three years have been wrought with supply chain issues and have presented many challenges and opportunities to be resourceful and find the solutions to keep projects moving forward. While procurement and timing challenges still exist, we continue to anticipate the next iteration of supply chain issues. We continue to be flexible and provide timely and accurate communication with our clients and trade partners.

Ok, let’s now move to the main part of our interview about commercial real estate. What are the 3 things that most excite you about the industry now? Why?

1. Redevelopment inside — and outside — the box: With big box retail stores overtaken by e-commerce, we are seeing large vanilla box spaces be converted into new, creative spaces like upscale grocery stores, multifamily housing, pickleball facilities, cannabis facilities, and more. It is not uncommon in this day and age to hear ‘that old school/church/hospital/department store is now a hotel/gym/dispensary.’
2. Delightful new optionality in retail: People both want the option of taking their time when they eat, drink or shop — or in the same space on a different day, they want the option to get in, and get out. We are excited to see up and coming concepts embrace the drive-thru or the digital order line, and evolve to support delivery.
3. Focus on collaborative spaces: We are seeing people return to their offices, their retail shops, the cities, but with priorities. People value community space and community time now more than ever, and providing larger, more open concepts for collaboration and socializing has become integral to design/build projects to create spaces where people want to work, live, eat, shop, drink and socialize.

What are the 3 things that concern you about it? Why? What should be done to address and alleviate those concerns?

1. Rising Construction Costs: With interest rates and material costs rising, Mosaic strives to stay one-step ahead by providing preliminary budget estimates and update pricing and timing as projects progress so that our clients can make educated decisions based on what items cost and how long materials take to procure in real time. We also incorporate language about pricing fluctuations in contract proposals to protect against price increases from bidding to the contract stage. The faster a client can decide on a trade supplier, and approve orders and purchases, the more effective they can be with holding price.
2. Long Supply Chain Lead Times: Having become more commonplace within the construction industry over the past two years, long lead times and supply chain issues have impacted the ability to obtain pricing that can be held from bid stage to procurement. We now have a longer bullpen of vendors and supply sources we can turn to when needed and are able to present multiple options and solutions rather than relying on one selection.
3. Labor Shortages: The availability of a skilled labor pool is tightening. So, to keep projects moving forward, we have a variety of trade and supplier resources available that we can turn to and leverage on an as-needed basis.

If you had the power to put in place 3 changes to improve or reform the industry, what would you suggest? Please share stories or examples, if possible.

1. Make the bid process less transactional, more nuanced. Reforming the bid process is a high priority for us; the current system favors the low-cost provider, which is not always the right firm for the job. In an improved system, all bids would be presented to the client in “live” presentation form, not just on a standardized form on paper. When clients have the chance to ask questions to the general contractor, it helps to ensure that everyone is on the same page; it is more relational and less transactional
2. Make all projects design/build. The strict traditional process of first designing, then transitioning to construction no longer makes sense in today’s world where supply chain and labor availability must be considered early in the process in order for the project to be delivered on time and on budget. Design/build is the most fluid form of construction as it requires consistent and constant communication between the design and build team from the start. For example, if you don’t order HVAC very early in the design process, it won’t be delivered in a timely manner to the site; there absolutely needs to be communication between the design and build members of the team early on, regardless of project type or location.
3. Make proof of funds more stringent. If it is required in residential, it should be in commercial. This system protects everyone, including the communities where we build.

How has technology changed the commercial real estate industry, and how do you foresee it shaping the future of the sector?

A lot of back-and-forth time is streamlined throughout the construction process by technology; we see direct ROI from the impacts the technology has on speed to sale and speed to market.

Project management software, CRM software and accounting software are critical to supporting the overall success of our enterprise as these create real time communications, help document and monitor each project, provide collaboration with clients and trades, ensure timely follow up, as well as support team efficiencies from business development through bidding, contract award, pre-construction work, project launch and close out.

Early in the process, the use of technology in construction is helping to stay in front of opportunities, view projects, connect with vendors and trades, especially when a client is not local to the project market. Although more commonplace in residential, the use of technology to present potential spaces to the client is becoming more commonplace in commercial real estate as well, which makes it easier to provide construction-related input earlier in the process. This will eventually give way to trade walk throughs happening remotely, giving the potential vendors a first-hand-look at the spaces in which they will be working.

More specifically, we’ve been using drones at various points during the timeline of a project to film the land the property is on, as well as the interior and exterior of the property. We capture pre-construction as well as progress photos during construction to show the evolution of the project, often in real time. We use drones to highlight the location of property, orientation of building, scale of building and land, topography, and point of view of the interior and exterior. With select photos and videos, we choose to post the footage in social media to showcase our work from this unique perspective. Drone photos become just as important as the finished photo documentation, allowing clients, potential clients and investors to better visualize a project’s potential and real time views of a given property.

I am hearing the phrase “Stay alive until 2025” a lot. What is your plan to survive in the current market?

Our goal is to always stay ahead of trends and to recognize when something is about to boom, or back off when it looks like there is over saturation and potential bust. We are also mindful that both business and cultural trends follow social, emotional and physical needs, even more so now in both the commercial and retail worlds.

For a young person who would like to eventually make a career in commercial real estate, which skills and subjects do they need to learn?

We strongly encourage those looking to make a career in the commercial real estate industry to expose themselves to all aspects of the business as early in their career as possible. Since we’re the guest in the community where we’re building any given project, it’s especially important to get comfortable talking to municipalities and zoning/permitting committees.

When evaluating deals or opportunities in real estate, what are the most important factors you look for and why? Can you provide some examples?

We look at safety, security, flexibility and accessibility when evaluating each new opportunity. We look to see if this project is in an area or municipality that is welcoming and lucrative and whether it provides the flexibility and ability to pivot with trends and unforeseen circumstances.

For example, we look to see if a restaurant can evolve from a sit-down environment to be takeout and delivery focused; does it allow for easy in and out accessibility; can the delivery person get in and out multiple times a day without interrupting the client or team member experience?

Can you share a story with us about the hardest deal you made, that ended successfully for you?

The state of the economy from 2009–2011 was actually the hardest time for our company. We cut spending, brought in money to sustain the business, put increased focus on relationships to create new project opportunities and a more diversified project portfolio, and said ‘yes’ to new and different projects that were beyond what we had typically built and/or renovated for our clients. We successfully used that time to leverage relationships, invest in bidding software that sourced trades nationally which enhanced our best-in-class project management service capabilities without sacrificing project excellence. All of these efforts ultimately helped grow our business from a local remodeling company to a national design/build firm.

Ok, here is the main question of our interview. Based on your personal experience and success, can you please share “Five Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career In The Commercial Real Estate Industry”?

1. Be Relationship Based: Being successful in the commercial real estate industry is all about people, sharing your story, and listening to theirs. It’s about collaboration and connection. It’s about communication and reputation. Just because one project doesn’t work out, that isn’t a reason to throw away a relationship. Projects come and go, but relationships last forever. For example, we were not selected to build a project with a particular client in Illinois. However, we had built the start of a productive relationship with them; we kept in touch and said, “we enjoy building our rapport and relationship, and know we can find the right opportunity to be your trusted general contractor.” Today, we are building a project in Connecticut with them.
2. Focus on Solutions: Always look out for your clients’ best interests and always be transparent and honest with them. They can take bad news as long as the bad news is followed with a good solution. We got word that a client’s dishwasher had gotten stuck in bad weather and was not going to make it, but we saw that the same dishwasher was for sale locally, so we went and picked it up and hand delivered it to the plumber. We then used the delayed dishwasher in the next project, looking like a hero to the second client because we had solved their problem immediately by having a delayed product in our storage room.
3. Embrace an Improv Mindset: Always say yes to new opportunities and make sure to surround yourself with people who know what they are doing. We said yes to working on residential projects, and then medical and commercial projects came along, building up our business to later include a very lucrative cannabis practice, because we always say: “yes, and…”
4. Anticipate Needs and Close the Loop: When a problem arises, those who are most successful go from the shock of an unexpected issue to a creative solution as fast as they can. They use their own experience and curiosity to anticipate what a client may need, and to always close the loop to make sure the client agrees that an issue has been resolved.
5. Contribute to a Positive Environment: People want to work with honest, genuine hard-working people who value their community and the people in it. We are committed to charity work and to making the world a better place.

Do you have three things you would advise a new real estate professional to avoid?

Thirty years of experience has taught us to: avoid clients that are not responsive to your questions; avoid municipalities and jurisdictions that are working against you; and, avoid working with inexperienced vendors that say they’ll learn as they go. Your client should not pay for someone else’s learning curve.

What advice would you give to another real estate professional about improving the work culture, building team morale, and helping each employee thrive?

At Mosaic Construction, we’ve spent significant time and attention to building morale and helping our team members thrive. And, as we have expanded rapidly over the past few years, we have become even more deliberate in fostering relationships within our team.

Our collaborative team culture is built upon our “Mosaic Actions” where we anticipate needs, communicate the story, do it the right way, contribute to a positive environment, close the loop, and build relationships. These actions are how we live our shared values and ethics. They guide how we conduct business and help to create an elevated experience for our clients and our Teams.

From our people to our projects, we are dedicated to providing a positive environment and exceptional experience for our team of driven, relationship-focused professionals looking to make a positive impact in the exciting world of construction. We also understand the importance of giving back to our community, supporting one another and delivering excellent work to our clients. It’s in our Mosaic DNA and how ‘It All Comes Together.’

What is your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share a story of how that had relevance to your own life?

I’ve been most influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s quote: “Don’t Ask, Don’t Get.” Taught to me at an early age, I learned that if you don’t ask for help or for what you want, there is a good chance that you will not get what it is you want. There are many life experiences where this has proved to be a great practice both in my personal and professional life. When submitting proposals, I now make a point of being direct and asking for the job, relating to the client why we believe we’re the most capable and qualified to complete the project. When having these conversations, we’ve found there is a much better chance of being the winning contractor.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I would start a “pay it forward” movement in which everyone gives back to their communities. We are a relationship-driven, design/build firm that believes in creating long-term partnerships that benefit our clients, our business and our community. We believe a “pay it forward” mindset brings the most amount of good to the most amount of people. Helping others is baked into our DNA and provides us the opportunity to make a difference through philanthropic partnerships. Giving back to our community has had a lasting impact on our team members and the organizations we support. Our diverse relationships extend to local non-profit organizations, community groups and Midwest-based charities, as well as national and worldwide organizations.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

To learn more and follow our work online, visit our websites at mosaicconstruction.net, dcc-inc.net and cannabisfacility.net. From those sites, you can link to our brochures, videos, and social media accounts.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

You’re welcome — I hope my advice has helped others and paid it forward.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!