Boyle Talks : Tom Hutton Talks Tenants Returning To the Office and the Leasing Process

Gary: Hello, I’m Gary Thompson with Boyle Investment Company and we’re here for another episode of Boyle Talks. Today, we’ll be interviewing Tom Hutton, who is a Senior Vice President in our Commercial Sales and Leasing Department. Tom, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Tom: I’ve been here almost 20 years. It’s hard to believe that before that, I played a little professional football. In off seasons I worked in commercial real estate so I got a feel for what I wanted to do in life after football.

Gary: What do you do here at Boyle?

Tom: I help lease up all of our office buildings here in East Memphis with Mark Halperin and Kathy Pampuro. I also manage a few buildings myself. We sort of wear all hats in our department… and I’ve been doing that for 20 years.

Gary: We’re in an interesting time right now with Covid and all of that. What are you seeing in terms of trends? With people coming back to work and back into office space.

Tom: It’s interesting. Last year we leased over 600,000 square feet of space, in East Memphis alone. Two hundred of that was new space.

Gary: So people are coming back?

Tom: People are coming back. A lot of our corporate tenants are back. It’s a good time.

Gary: How would that process work if I’m looking for a space where I’m a new tenant?

Tom: Typically the way the process works is that either a prospect will call us or email us or they’ll have a broker that that calls us and emails us. The first thing we want to do is to get their requirements to see what they actually need, how many private offices, how many people they have in their office, because we want to make sure that their business fits within our tenant mix of our buildings. And from there we submit plans to them. Once they approve it, then we’ll go ahead and competitively bid the improvements of what the cost will be on the space.

Gary: So you can help them from, here’s a first look at what it could be, to finished drawings, to construction, to fully executed move-in?

Tom: Exactly and it’s all in-house for us in our department.

Gary: How is the process here at Boyle differ from other landlords perhaps?

Tom: Our relationships. We’ve got so many good relationships with the decision makers of these companies, with brokers that represent the companies. Usually, I would say 60 to 70 percent of the time, you know, one or all of us know the the decision maker that is wanting to come lease space.

Gary: So you’re a familiar face in a familiar landscape?

Tom: Correct. You got it. We strive to take care of our tenants on a daily basis.

Gary: Tom, thank you for taking the time to explain to us what you guys do.

Tom: Gary, thank you for having me.

Gary: You bet! And thank you for joining us today on another Boyle Talks!