Office: ‘Much of It Will Be Dirt’

Michael Levy, CEO of Crow Holdings, says the bottom third of office buildings are redevelopment projects that are a “multi-decade problem.”In today’s episode, Julie sits down in New York to talk with Michael Levy, CEO of Crow Holdings, the private real estate developer and investment firm in Dallas. After an 18-year career at Morgan Stanley, which included restructuring the firm’s real estate business during the depths of the financial crisis and being COO of Morgan Stanley Investment Management, he moved to a red state and became the first outsider to lead the family business started by Trammell Crow 75 years ago. That’s a notoriously tough job — for obvious reasons.Julie and Michael discussed the new reality of the office, why — when first joining Crow — Michael just listened to people for such a long time before moving their cheese, why Crow will NEVER go public, and what it means to run a company “for employees.” Employees. That was a new concept for me.There’s a ton more. And it’s always the details that make a story. Feel free to email me at [email protected] with your thoughts on this episode and any ideas.