Cheryl Muniz likes to say that she leapt into real estate 20 years ago.
She is vice president of investor services with Cassidy Turley, and the first and only African-American vice president for the commercial real estate services company.
In her prior career, she was a ballet dancer.
Born and raised in St. Louis, Muniz spent six years in New York working with Dance Theater of Harlem, Metropolitan Opera Ballet, and the New Jersey Ballet. She was then chosen to join Washington Ballet, where she danced for four years. Her last performance was at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C., working alongside Alvin Ailey.
“I danced because I loved it,” Muniz said. “After the performance, I was left without passion. I didn’t feel that burn that kept me going. I woke up and said, ‘I think I’m retired.’”
After spending some time as a go-fer and then a cold caller for a tenant representation group in New York, she found Paragon Group in St. Louis. Her supervisor, Lewis Levy, showed her the ropes and she moved into the property management division.
“She was a strong performer,” said Lewis Levy, who was then the managing director at Paragon and now is chairman of a consulting firm. “She had limited experience before she came, but she was a willing and good learner.”
After six years with Paragon, a prior employer called her to manage the new office St. Louis office for ProLogis, which is the global leader in distribution facilities, such as warehouses for retail stores like Target.
At the time, ProLogis was entering the St. Louis market with a small real estate portfolio.
“I eventually said ‘yes,’ and it was one of the best moves I’ve made,” she said.
She started as a senior property manager, where she trained a staff and identified vendors that she would call her right hand.
“Relationships are extremely important in any business, but especially in commercial real estate,” she said.
As the business continued to expand, she developed property managers and created systems for the rapidly growing real estate portfolio across the country and Asia and Europe.
Commercial real estate
After 11 years at ProLogis, Muniz joined Cassidy Turley to help manage the company’s accounts, and ProLogis is the largest account she manages. Muniz finds her work more like a crisis manager.
“We are asked to find solutions and find ways to create value on their properties, to increase occupancy, but not create exorbitant expenses,” she said. “It’s the same thing you do with your own home.”
Muniz’s role at Cassidy Turley is unlike many positions in the commercial real estate realm, she said.
“Typically in our industry, you’re either very focused on property management, or you’re very focused on chasing after the deal and hunting and capturing and moving on to the next deal,” she said.
At Cassidy Turley, she works on both the brokerage or leasing side and the property managing or maintenance side.
“I like to hunt and capture, and I still like to see it grow and nurture it too,” she said.
Muniz is one of five account managers, who share the 25 million square feet that the company manages. Each account manager has between three and five million square feet to manage. She has 11 property managers who report to her. In total, the company has 75 property managers and 60 maintenance staff.
All of the company’s accounts are commercial. They work frequently for BJC HealthCare to manage its medical and office buildings. They also manage warehouse buildings, and a few retail strip centers.
Muniz said her clients range from the three doctors that pulled their capital together to buy two buildings to the large national companies.
Diversity
Muniz, who has been in the business for 20 years, said it has always been a white male dominated industry.
She can list the number of women involved in commercial real estate when she first started, she said. “Those women are still involved and have been and continue to be pillars and resources,” she said.
At ProLogis in St. Louis, she was the only African American at a senior level, which is common, she said. Yet, in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, there are more minorities in high-ranking positions.
“We need to understand our competitive playing field and what our losses are when people leave,” to go to these other cities, she said.
The company has a “new fresh crop” of professionals that are women and African Americans, she said.
For employees, the company has groups for women and minorities, including a multicultural society. Those employees also participate in United Way’s Charmaine Chapman Society, she said.
For minority participation among the vendors, Muniz said that she tries to keep it in mind. The company does not yet have minority participation goals set in place for the vendors they work with, she said.
St. Louis needs to address the issue of diversity more aggressively.
“Diversity is becoming more of a focus in St. Louis,” she said. “If the larger visible companies make a statement that we are embracing our multicultural society, the rest of the community will follow. We need the big dogs to start that, and I consider us, Cassidy Turley one of those big dogs.”
