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Owning and operating shopping malls requires some of the skills George F. Rubin ’64 acquired as a civil engineering student, but one — an understanding of shopping trends — he picked up on the job.
“I spend a lot of time in malls,” admits Rubin, although the hours aren’t spent pawing through the racks.
As president of PREIT Services LLC, and PREIT-RUBIN Inc., a unit of Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust, Rubin needs to know what types of stores are luring consumers, whom he credits with holding up the retail sector in a generally weak economy.
“You have to keep your eyes on the merchandising, and what stores are attracting people,” says Rubin, a Lafayette trustee.
He estimates that after a merger to be completed in September, PREIT-Rubin will manage 40 malls and 14 strip malls, mostly in the eastern United States, representing 30 million gross leaseable square feet.
Although his big role as president is in acquisitions, the retail division is also Rubin’s direct responsibility, and he regularly reads publications like Women’s Wear Daily. Aware of criticisms that all malls look alike, he concentrates on diversifying the stores and merchandise.
“You need to be strong in marketing and merchandizing for a mall to be successful,” says Rubin. “It’s kind of like running a department store. If it gets tired, the sales drop.”
He oversees malls during a time of transition, when “the big box concept” — discount specialty operations like Home Depot and Kohl’s — have gained popularity and department stores reinvent themselves as they struggle to compete.
At the same time, the economy hasn’t dragged down sales “as badly as you might think,” says Rubin.
“The consumer is holding up the economy,” he says. “A lot has to do with low interest rates — refinancing homes and still having money to spend. They’re confident enough to keep spending.”
PREIT is a publicly traded company and yet it feels like a family business, says Rubin, who began working with his father in real estate in 1970 after serving with the Army Corps of Engineers in Vietnam.
“We weren’t a general contractor, but construction is involved,” says Rubin. “I liked the way engineering and construction went together. When I started, it was my father, my brother, two other people, and administrative help. We’ve grown and merged with other companies. After the next merger in the fall, we’ll have about 1,500 employees.”
Rubin says his company has a total market capitalization of $2.7 billion, which is the value of its common and preferred stock plus debt on projects.
Today, he works with his sons, Tim ’88 and Dan ’92, who met their future wives, Lisa Kiziuk Rubin ’89 and Kristen Glauda ’92, at Lafayette. The sons are involved in leasing and assets, respectively. Rubin has six grandchildren.
“Dan and Tim have a lot to offer. They got good educations at Lafayette,” says Rubin. He adds that he loves everything about the school and feels President Arthur J Rothkopf ’55 has taken the school “to the next level.”
Rubin says he picked Lafayette because he wanted to attend a small college with good opportunities to play lacrosse and football, adding that he mainly played lacrosse.
Although he and his wife, Lorraine, share a small farm in Westchester, Pa., with horses, chickens and goats, and a house on Long Beach Island, N.J., Rubin has a special affection for his hometown of Philadelphia, where he hopes to help improve retail prospects. PREIT owns Gallery I, the original section of the two-part mall in Center City.
“We’d like to see the city thriving. We hope we can improve the properties and make the retail environment better,” he says. “There are a few major department stores and we want to bring in more. Retailers are of a herd mentality. If there’s one pioneer, the rest will follow. That’s our hope.”
Although progress has been slow, the situation in Philadelphia is a lot better than 10 years ago, Rubin says.
On the home front, Rubin and his wife, inspired by their disabled daughter, Kelly, are involved in Thorncroft Therapeutic Horseback Riding Inc. They themselves learned to ride “to understand what she was trying to do,” he says.
“We travel some. I love to fish,” says Rubin, who puts in a ten-hour day and hasn’t given thought to retiring from the job.
In fact, wisdom comes with age in retailing, suggests the executive, who has learned to cope with the business’ cyclical nature and mitigate the highs and lows.
“You get used to the low periods, that they will reverse, and learn not to get too excited by the high periods, which also come to an end,” Rubin says. “You can’t let your companies get too big in the good years, or you’ll face layoffs.”
“It’s not for the faint of heart,” he concludes.