Ashton

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There’s a shopping center set to open in Tarzana later this spring where the lease rates are twice the asking price of anything else on Ventura Boulevard.

It was fully leased anyway months before construction even began. And while the center’s location and parking facilities may have helped attract tenants, competitors point to another part of the mix the broker who closed the deals.

His name is James Ashton and he’s developed such a reputation for his ability to persuade A-list tenants to pay premium rents that other brokers even have a name for the phenomenon.

“It’s called getting Ashtonized,” said one competitor, not exactly a term of endearment but one that reflects the mix of envy and admiration.

“There’s not many like him,” said Michael Lushing, a broker and vice president with Madison Partners, who works extensively in the San Fernando Valley. “There’s a lot of us that do the same thing he does. There are very few who rise to the top. He’s one because of his diligence, his commitment and his sales abilities.”

Ashton, an independent who operates as AFC Commercial Real Estate Group Inc. in Westlake Village, began hitting the industry’s radar screen because of his partnership with Rick Caruso, whose company has developed such high-profile projects as the Promenade at Westlake, the Commons at Calabasas and the Grove at Farmers Market. Caruso’s centers which double as a neighborhood’s town square, with plazas, walkways and weekend entertainment have commanded the Valley’s highest retail rents.

Caruso first met Ashton while the broker was negotiating on behalf of a tenant for space in another Caruso development, Encino Marketplace, and virtually hired him on the spot. Ashton now represents all of Caruso’s projects exclusively.

“James is without a doubt the best broker I have ever worked with,” Caruso said. “He understands the demographics. He understands the population base. He understands the trade area. He understands what the tenant needs are, so he builds that into his sales pitch.”

To Ashton, an affable 38-year-old, it all comes down to outrunning the competition. In school he got up at 4:30 a.m. to log an extra two hours on the tennis court before his opponents woke up. Today, he follows a similar regimen. He begins cold calling potential tenants at 8 a.m. and often holds conference calls with tenants and developers at 10 p.m.

“Most brokers are lazy and they work from 9 to 5,” Ashton said. “When I’m doing a project, the name of the game is to expose your project to the largest amount of people. It’s a matter of getting in front of them.”

Ashton says it’s not unusual for him to place 40 or 50 calls before he gets the ear of a potential client. “I like the fact that I’ve got to call a guy 40 or 50 times; that gives me a challenge,” he said. “Whatever it takes, I’m going to get that guy.”

Ashton went into the real estate business at Coldwell Banker right after graduating from UCLA in 1983. He claims that after a while, he got every listing. In 1987, deciding that he didn’t want to depend on earning an income from the brokerage business, he began developing some of his own properties as a sideline. Today he owns 13 properties, most of them free and clear.

“I wanted to get to the point where I have a certain amount of money coming in, where if I never did another real estate transaction, it wouldn’t affect my quality of life,” he said. “I got there two years ago.”

That financial independence allows him to pick and choose his projects. He usually represents only one or two at a time. “Most brokers work on 10 to 15 properties at once,” he said. “After you get past the logical tenants, if you’re a broker, it’s impossible to really know the prospects.”

Because he can devote so much time to each project, Ashton often travels outside the area to scout fresh tenants. For the upcoming Grove at Farmers Market, he is considering a national tour to identify “who’s unique; who’s hot,” he said. That way, he figures he can recruit companies that don’t currently have a presence on the West Coast, but are interested in setting up a flagship operation here.

Though a recruiting effort often begins with a cold call, Ashton moves quickly to get as much information as he can about the client’s business everything from how often customers typically visit the store, to how long they stay and how much they spend.

“I want to pick his brain clean,” Ashton said of his potential tenants. “No. 1, it gives me more credibility. No. 2, it’s going to help me sell.”

Developers like Jay Kerner, president of KMI Real Estate Group, the company building the center at Reseda and Ventura boulevards in Tarzana, said most other brokers limit their role to putting the landlord and tenant together to work out a deal on their own.

“He tends to put in a lot more effort and has a lot more understanding and research behind him to educate the tenants as to why that particular site is where they should be and why the rents the landlord is asking for are justifiable,” Kerner said.

Ashton worked with Kerner from the inception of the Tarzana project, helping to define a strategy to warrant a high rental rate. The center has three entranceways and exits, whereas other neighboring complexes have only one, making it easier to travel through the Tarzana project.

Ashton’s formula worked well in places like the Promenade and Commons, in part because these centers have movie theaters to help draw traffic from a wider area, and designs that entice shoppers to spend extra time, all contributing to higher sales volumes. But the upcoming KMI center has no such amenities.

“I think his (Caruso’s) property probably benefits from James’ aggressive nature, but it doesn’t go without the outstanding development that Rick does,” said Greg Whitney, a senior associate with CB Richard Ellis Inc. “That accounts for 90 to 95 percent of the rents that he gets.”

Detractors say that the Tarzana center is just a small neighborhood center in an area chock full of neighborhood centers, and they wonder whether it will yield higher sales volumes.

But five chains think the site holds enough promise to sign on at monthly rents ranging from $3.50 to $4.50 a square foot, in spite of the fact that space can be had in neighboring centers for $1.75 to $2 a square foot.

That’s where Ashton’s skill comes in.

“I’ve met a lot of people in my life that know all the buzzwords and can lay out a lot of facts,” Caruso said. “It’s how you put the facts together and how well you understand what they mean.”

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