Pauline Pappas

Family has always been a priority for Pauline Pappas - be it the family she followed from Ohio to St. Petersburg some 31 years ago or the family atmosphere she has built at Pappas Retail Leasing & Management.

“When you’re close to your family, you miss each other,” Pappas said, noting the importance of her move to the Tampa Bay area.

Pappas got her start here as an office manager for a law firm in St. Petersburg, but it wasn’t long before her interest turned to real estate and she applied to become the leasing agent for a shopping center in Clearwater.

“The Brandon Company hired me out of 52 people. I didn’t have any experience, so they taught me a lot,” she said. “I think they thought I had great potential.”

Pappas proved herself in Clearwater, and her work soon led to another opportunity with The Brandon Company.

“They had a project in Orlando. They hired a girl there they weren’t happy with. Since I had brought the center to 89% occupancy in Clearwater, they wanted to transplant me to Orlando. I had a younger sister there at the time, Helen,” she said.

Not much time passed before Pappas and her sister were in the business together, each contributing their own strengths to the operation.

“She wasn’t happy in her job. I said, ‘Why don’t you get your real estate license.’ Less than two weeks later, she got her license and got a 98 on the test,” Pappas said.

“She was very smart. I consider myself the workaholic, but she was the brains. What attributes I didn’t have, she had. And what attributes she didn’t have, I had.”

The duo took a position with Fort Lauderdale-based HSW Development to lease a shopping center in Kendall. After about 18 months, however, they struck out on their own - doing leasing work for several South Florida developers.

“We saw a niche that was not being serviced by any of the big companies,” she said.

Family would enter the picture once again when Pappas’ father in St. Petersburg came down with cancer. Traveling every weekend between South Florida and the Tampa Bay area soon convinced Pappas and her sister of the need to relocate back to St. Petersburg. Great Western Bank in Fort Lauderdale had offered them a job handling the bank’s REOs, but they turned it down to be closer to family.

Back in St. Petersburg, Pappas and her sister landed new assignments almost immediately, including a challenging leasing task for a shopping center owned by a Canadian company.

“It was at 40% when we started, and it was 94% when we finished,” Pappas said, adding their success prompted them to buy a building for their own headquarters.

With four employees and 350,000sf under contract, Pappas and her sister started out by covering Pinellas and Hillsborough counties. That would later expand to Citrus, Hernando, Manatee and Sarasota counties.

“We had a combination of strength and pure will to be successful together,” Pappas said. “Unfortunately, Helen was stricken with cancer and passed away at a very early age. While the loss was very devastating to me, I knew that Helen would have wanted me to carry on and grow the company we started together.”

Pappas Retail Leasing & Management has since grown to encompass 2.7 msf, but Pauline Pappas is most impressed by the people who have helped build the company.

“I think my biggest accomplishment is my staff. They gave me a plaque this year that said, ‘The key to happiness is having dreams. The key to success is making them come true,’” she said.

Pappas said enjoyment of her work - and a loyal client base, some of whom have been with her for 15 years - will keep her occupied for the foreseeable future.

“It’s the love of the job - as long as people want me to do things for them,” she said. “I’m more of a boutique operation. People will refer business to me. I rarely advertise, and I have a very good reputation in the business.”

Pappas is involved in many industry groups, including the International Council of Shopping Centers (26 years), Greater Clearwater Association of Realtors, National Association of Realtors, Florida Gulf Coast Commercial Association of Realtors, and Commercial Real Estate Women.

The company has been named among the Top 25 Commercial Property Management Firms by the Tampa Bay Business Journal.