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7/10/2009 - Richard E. Jacobs Left a Lasting Legacy of Success
Richard E. Jacobs Left A Lasting Legacy of Success.
The founder, Chairman, and CEO of The Richard E. Jacobs Group and former owner of The Cleveland Indians has died.
Cleveland, Ohio 6-5-09 - Richard E. Jacobs, one of the pioneers of the modern shopping center industry, the Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and owner of The Richard E. Jacobs Group, and former owner of The Cleveland Indians, died June 5 at his home in Lakewood, Ohio. Mr. Jacobs was 83 and had suffered from a lengthy illness.
Born in Akron, Ohio in 1925 during the Great Depression, Mr. Jacobs' first job began at the age of 13, peeling potatoes at the venerable Swenson's drive-in restaurant in Akron. After graduating from Akron Buchtel High School in 1943, he served during World War II in the U.S. Army as a first lieutenant. Shortly after graduating from Indiana University in 1949 with a degree in business administration, he launched his career in real estate, first working at the S.D. Stenson development firm in Akron.
He soon became one of a handful of early developers who built some of the first suburban shopping centers in the United States. With his late brother, David H. Jacobs, the two formed their company in 1955, first building small strip centers. By the early 1960's, along with partner and close friend Dominic Visconsi, the Jacobs, Visconsi & Jacobs Co. (JVJ) grew to eventually become one of the five largest shopping center developers in America.
Some of the company's earliest malls included Northland, Eastland, and Westland Malls in Columbus, Ohio; Belden Village Mall in Canton, Ohio, Brookfield Square in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Midway Mall in Elyria, Ohio, and West Towne and East Towne Malls in Madison, Wisconsin. JVJ was known for building high quality centers that featured large park-like interiors with significant art sculptures, elaborate fountains, and lush landscaping. Mr. Jacobs' development strategy was to build the dominant, and in many cases, the only malls in middle-size markets such as Lexington, Kentucky, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and Saginaw, Michigan. As a result, many of these original Jacobs malls still remain as some of the country's most successful retail centers.
After the death of David H. Jacobs in 1992, the company name was changed to The Richard E. Jacobs Group. At its peak, The Jacobs Group owned and managed 40 regional malls in 16 states and the company's total commercial real estate holdings exceeded 45 million square feet.
Richard Jacobs will also be remembered as a man who made significant civic and economic contributions to his hometown of Cleveland. In 1986 he and his brother purchased the Cleveland Indians baseball team, a transaction that is widely acknowledged as preventing the perennially struggling team from moving to another city. Under his leadership, the Indians became one of Major League Baseball's most admired and emulated powerhouse teams, winning two American League Pennants and six Central Division Championships. And the team's record of 455 consecutive sellouts at the former Jacobs Field may possibly never be broken by another team. Mr. Jacobs sold the team in 2000.
Asked about his formula for success, Mr. Jacobs once told an interviewer, "My approach to running the Cleveland Indians is really no different than the approach I have taken in almost 50 years of doing business: invest in talent and resources. I learned early on that you have to build a good foundation, that you can't take shortcuts and that you have to hire good people and let them do their jobs. All of those lessons carry over from one business to another, and that is the approach we have taken with the Indians."
While fans cheered the Indians' success, Mr. Jacobs' peers offered high praise for the team behind that success.
"I don't know of anybody who's come into baseball in the 25 years I've been in the game who has been better for baseball than Dick Jacobs," George M. Steinbrenner III, principal owner of the New York Yankees, said in a 1998 interview.
That same year, Allan H. "Bud" Selig, Commissioner of Baseball, said, "When I think back to the history of the Cleveland franchise, what Dick Jacobs and his management staff have done over the past decade as an organization, it is absolutely remarkable. They are the crown jewel of Major League Baseball. There is no question about it. On the field and off the field."
Downtown Cleveland's skyline will also be forever changed as a result of Richard Jacobs' endeavors. In 1987, he opened The Galleria at Erieview, the first new retail center to open in downtown Cleveland in 50 years. This marked the beginning of a major resurgence in what national news media at the time called "The Comeback City." This period reached its literal peak when Mr. Jacobs built and opened the 57-story Key Tower in 1991. It remains today as both the city's and the state of Ohio's tallest structure and has become a widely photographed architectural icon for Cleveland.
Mr. Jacobs was also a major developer and owner of hotels, including the Cleveland Downtown Marriott at Key Center, the famous Pier House Resort in Key West, Florida, and over 20 other Marriott-affiliated hotels.
In 2000, Mr. Jacobs began an estate planning strategy that exchanged the bulk of his real estate portfolio for shares of successful real estate investment trusts. This did not slow his entrepreneurial drive as a developer, however, as The Jacobs Group continued building regional shopping centers in high growth cities such as Raleigh, North Carolina and Fort Myers, Florida.
One of his final strategic moves was the planning of his company's continuation after his death. The Richard E. Jacobs Group will remain as a very active real estate development firm, executing the plan Mr. Jacobs personally devised to ensure future growth and success. There are currently several retail, office, and mixed-use developments in various stages of planning or construction. In late 2008, Mr. Jacobs also formed a subsidiary company, Jacobs Real Estate Services (JRES), that provides third party management, leasing, and brokerage services for commercial office buildings. JRES presently manages and leases Key Center and the Chagrin Highlands corporate community in Cleveland's eastern suburbs.
"Dick Jacobs was our boss, our mentor, our leader, and our friend," said Jacobs Group Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Judson E. Smith. "His intelligence, honesty, integrity, and wit successfully earned him the respect, admiration, and friendship of associates, peers, and competitors. He will be profoundly missed by all of us at The Jacobs Group and we extend our deepest condolences to his family."
Mr. Jacobs is survived by his son, Jeffrey P. Jacobs and daughters Nancy Jacobs and Marilyn Jacobs Preyer as well as eleven grandchildren.
Funeral arrangements will be announced by Mr. Jacobs' family.
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