The Ralph Bivins Project – Podcast Guest Lacee Jacobs

RALPH BIVINS: This is Ralph Bivins with the Ralph Bivins Project. We are here today with Lacee Jacobs. She is the founder and president of Rebel Retail Advisors based here in Houston. She is the head of it, and they came out of the gate fast. How are you, Lacee?

LACEE JACOBS: I’m great, thanks for having me.

RALPH BIVINS: Lacee, tell me a little about Rebel Retail Advisors.

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LACEE JACOBS: We launched officially this week, but we started pretty hot out of the gate. Our team came from Parkway Properties by way of the Midway Parkway Partnership. We have been working and continue to work with Midway and Parkway on projects that include retail. We work on these assets and other new projects we’ve picked up in the past few months.

Our focus is on place making and project leasing. We are specialists and experts, if I do say so, in creating a place. It’s a little different than the majority of the market, which is focused on big-box, grocery-anchored kind of retail. We are highly specialized in urban, mixed-use retail. Our tenant side is focused on the same category of user, but we are able to represent some tenants that align with those types of assets and projects.

RALPH BIVINS: Also, I believe that your brokerage staff is all female.

LACEE JACOBS: Yes. That’s accurate. It’s interesting that it happened that way. It wasn’t done on purpose by any means. But, yes, the talent is from women here in Houston.

RALPH BIVINS: What about the name, “Rebel?” How did you come up with that?

LACEE JACOBS: We wanted something that people would remember – and that was eye-catching, but also communicated who we are and, personally, I think we are the leasing team or project leasing team that’s willing to try things and willing to get creative and willing to think outside the box, so, naturally, we are a little bit of a rebel. We think of things such as “how can we get this done?” rather than “how has it always been done?” It’s our natural approach to any assignment and any challenge. Because retail is evolving, and retail continues to evolve at a very rapid pace. Unfortunately, a lot of groups are failing to keep up with this because they want to do things the way they always were done or the way they were done 10 or 15 years ago. That just doesn’t work that way anymore.

So, that’s kind of where the name came from. And, honestly, just from working with Midway for the past few years, there’s a lot of things they wanted to accomplish, and they have a vision that isn’t the norm. By working beside them, we learned to accomplish something that is different.

RALPH BIVINS: Midways East River development – this is a tremendously innovative project – 150-acres on the east side of downtown barely a mile from what used to be called Minute Maid Park where the Astros play. I was at East River recently and a lot of new buildings have been finished and more is under construction. Can you update us on what’s happening there?

LACEE JACOBS: A lot of the tenants are gearing up to open. It’s a little later than any of us anticipated. But last year, the permitting process was a real struggle for a lot of them. Now, they’ve gotten through that and through construction. Most of the restaurant and non-restaurant tenants — the retail segment – are ready to open within a month. I think people will be very pleased to go there and experience what we have been working on these past five years.

RALPH BIVINS: I remember the East River groundbreaking. It was during the pandemic. Everyone was in a big field, holding shovels and wearing masks.

LACEE JACOBS: And we spent the two years before that taking people out to that big field and trying to sell them on the vision and the picture, and our team – at the time working in-house with Midway – was able to deal with the pandemic’s issues and to get to groundbreaking – and that was during COVID. Quite literally, this was one of my proudest accomplishments.

East River Makes Splash in Fifth Ward — Wearing masks due to Covid, Midway’s East River groundbreaking August, 2021. Anna Deans, David Hightower, Jamie Bryant, the late Mayor Sylvester Turner, Bo Sanford, Larry Sloan, and Lacee Jacobs. Photo Courtesy of Midway.

RALPH BIVINS: You mentioned the Laura Apartments at East River which I saw when I took a walk through the development recently. It’s a really unusual buildout. Extra-large common space, incorporation of 20-foot containers. Lots of great things. I can’t remember seeing a more unique or interesting interior design in an apartment lobby. It fits the place — near the water not far from the Ship Channel. Have you got any retail tenants?

LACEE JACOBS: Yes. Regarding the Laura, the base of the retail there was just over 10,000 SF. The idea originally was to create incubator space there, to white box them, to make it a little easier for first-time operators to move into them and build out. So, Midway built all those out and provided restrooms, HVAC, lighting, all those things that typically you would have to put in yourself as a tenant.

So that allowed us to lease all those spaces to small business operators and some first-time operators. Specifically, starting from one end to the other, we have Laffa Mediterranean, which is a bakery and café located closest to the water. Next to that is a mom and daughter duo boutique that will sell apparel and accessories. They have had a pop-up for a while and are now ready for brick and mortar. They are undergoing buildout.

The opportunity to work with new businesses is not something I get to do much. A lot of my clients are institutional landlords looking for national credit tenants. It’s really a special experience for me to work with new and small business owners.

Among the other retail locations is a hair salon to be run by a very talented person who has been in a salon suite for the past five years. There are several others coming in who are really bringing a unique flair to this project, making it more than just cookie cutter locations.

RALPH BIVINS: And the Port of Houston is constructing a new 100,000 SF headquarters building there that should bring in a lot of daytime traffic. It’s going to be an interesting mix.

Lacee Jacobs biography

Lacee Jacobs is the founder and president of Rebel Retail Advisors, a commercial real estate firm working in retail centers and mixed-use developments. Jacobs, a graduate of the University of Houston, leads all aspects of curating brands, managing partner relationships and creating unique and customized experiences for owners and patrons at the firm.

During a career spanning more than a decade, she has honed specializations in merchandising, pre-leasing, lease-up initiatives and fostering relationships locally, regionally and nationally.

Before launching Rebel Retail Advisors, Lacee was the senior vice president of Retail at Midway, a real estate investment, development and construction firm focused on mixed-use development. Prior to the Midway stint, she worked with CBRE, strengthening its urban leasing team in Houston.