Mary Lou Fiala is the president and COO of Regency Centers.
WHAT DOES SHE DO?
She is responsible for the operational management of Regency’s retail centers nationwide. “My responsibility is to oversee the total company’s financial profitability with my partner and CEO Martin E. Stein Jr. My primary focus is to oversee the 266 properties we have across the United States of which 87 percent are grocery store anchored shopping centers. We have over $3 billion in total assets. I am also responsible for marketing, legal, human resources.” Regency Centers develops a grocery store-anchored shopping center and then finds tenants to accompany the store. “We do about $4-5 million of development a year.”
HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHERE A SHOPPING
CENTER NEEDS TO GO?
“We have several shopping centers in Jacksonville. Typically when we are looking at a new market or an area, it is typically driven by the grocer. They have sales figures that they plan on accomplishing their first year of opening. Grocers typically do the research and say they can do X amount of sales in year one. Also, we look at what the average household income would be in that market. Our household income in the markets we develop is $75,000 versus a national average household income of $58,000. We also look at population growth over a five-year period and our average population growth in the markets that we have shopping centers in is almost eight percent, where the national average is four and a half percent. If we get great interest from our grocer and our side shops then that’s when we look at developing. So, it really has to do with demographics and interest of the retailers.”
DOES YOUR COMPANY DO DOWNTOWN
GROCERY STORES?
“No. We never do downtown grocery stores, we always do neighborhoods. We do larger format shopping centers. Our average shopping center is 111,000 square feet. It’s just not the prototype that we do. It’s not that we wouldn’t ever do it, but it really is not our area of expertise.”
WHAT NEEDS TO
HAPPEN DOWNTOWN FOR MORE RETAIL
TO MOVE IN?
“Obviously they need more residential. You have to have business and residential and really do a plan that incorporates business, residential and retail all in the same plan because the retailers won’t survive long enough while the rest of it grows. It really needs to be an overall plan.”
WHAT DO YOU
THINK OF THE
DOWNTOWN AREA?
“I think there is still a lot of opportunity. My personal opinion is that we have an opportunity to have a thriving downtown. I think we need to continue to get more businesses downtown, better parking and more residential. Therefore, everything will follow from there in terms of retail. It’s a great downtown,it’s a beautiful downtown and the City just needs to continue as they are and focus on bringing more businesses specifically in the downtown area.”
MOVED TO
JACKSONVILLE
Three and a half years ago to work with Regency Centers.
HOW DO YOU
LIKE IT HERE?
“I love it here. It’s a great place to live.”
BEFORE REAL ESTATE?
She was senior vice president and director of stores from Macy’s East/Federated Department Stores for 18 and a half years.
HOW LONG HAS SHE BEEN IN COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE and how did you get into it?
Five years.
“I was recruited by a man by the name of Bill Sanders to Security Capital Global Strategic Group, Inc. five years ago as the managing director.” She was responsible for the development of operating systems for the firm’s retail-related initiatives. That company owns 50 percent of Regency Centers today. “Sanders felt that it was important to have somebody sit on the Regency Centers board and several other of his company’s boards with a retail and management perspective, not just real estate focus. So they hired me and, as they merged the two companies, Martin Stein asked me to become the president of the company.”
COLLEGE
She has a bachelor’s degree in business/retailing from Miami University in Ohio.
FAVORITE THING
ABOUT REAL ESTATE?
“The people that I get to work with, primarily in this company. We have an outstanding organization with a talented group of people. Also, the opportunity to work with people across the country and our customers.”
LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT REAL ESTATE?
“I travel a lot. We have 22 offices across the United States. I’m gone probably three days a week.”
FAMILY
She and husband Jerry have been married for two and a half years. She has three daughters, Jennifer Miles, 31, and twins Susan and Sarah Rogers, 22. She also has two grandchildren, Drew, 5, and Samantha, 16 months.
CIVIC ASSOCIATIONS
She is involved with the United Way and Habitat for Humanity, “We’ve built seven houses in Jacksonville. We have a lot that goes on that I get involved with, but everything is really through company.”
— by Michele Newbern Gillis