Evan Makovsky has dropped NAI Global.
The head of Denver brokerage NAI Shames Makovsky has cut ties with the firm, which operates like a franchisor.
As a result, the firm that Makovsky founded in 1971 with his uncle Motty Shames is back to being known as Shames Makovsky.
“It’s not that we have anything against NAI. It’s that the services provided by them to us at a substantial cost is available at a much lesser cost and, in some cases, free,” Makovsky said.
He said his firm joined NAI 18 years ago around the Great Recession. At the time, he joined to get some of the advantages of being part of a national firm like JLL or CBRE, such as access to technology and referrals from NAI offices in other cities.
But technology is widely available now, Makovsky said, and referrals aren’t worth the membership cost.
The name change isn’t that significant. The firm was known as Shames Makovsky for its first 30-some years. And many people have called it by that name the past 18 years anyway.
“We’re back to our roots,” Makovsky said.
Makovsky, 81, is a titan in the Denver real estate scene. But he didn’t intend to go into the industry.
Originally from Pueblo, Makovsky expected to take over the furniture store his immigrant father ran there. That changed, however, when he came to Denver for college and “got very involved with the Jewish community that I didn’t really have in Pueblo.”
He got a bachelor’s in business and a master’s in finance from the University of Denver and was offered a job at a bank in Detroit, Michigan, with a starting salary of $20,000 — nearly $200,000 today. But, a recruiter warned him not to take it — Makovsky doesn’t recall why — and he heeded the advice.
Shortly after that, Shames, his mother’s youngest brother, decided to go into real estate. You can join if you want, he told Makovsky.
“I don’t know anything about real estate,” Makovsky recalls saying.
Shames took him to the Top of the Rockies restaurant, which operated atop the 1600 Glenarm tower until the mid-1980s. There, they looked out over the city.
“You see all that real estate out there. That’s your inventory. Go out and sell it,” Makovsky said Shames told him.
At that point, you had to work under a broker for two years before you could take the exam for a real estate license. Shames and Makovsky worked for Samuel Berger — “not a great teacher,” Makovsky said — before launching Shames Makovsky.
The firm focused on industrial real estate at first, helping firms that had to leave downtown during the Skyline Urban Renewal Project, which saw many buildings demolished.
“I became pretty much a known guy because I knocked on every one of those business’s doors,” he said.
Shames left the business in the mid-1980s because of health issues. It was the start of a tough period. A top employee left, taking clients with him, when Makovsky declined his request to become a 50% partner. Then, Denver real estate values and activity plummeted in an oil and gas bust and the savings and loan crisis.
Real estate is a boom-and-bust industry, especially in Denver, which has historically been a boom-and-bust city.
“The recession of the 1980s was probably the most challenging for me because I’d never been through it,” Makovsky said.
He recalls meeting with an older industry veteran back then who reassured him that “there will be a tomorrow.”
That’s Makovsky’s advice for younger folks in the industry now, with office vacancy high, towers selling for 80% off and a glut of apartments pushing down rents and building values.
“If you don’t have that mental attitude to live for that tomorrow, you have to get out,” he said.
He’s optimistic about the hundreds of millions that the Denver Downtown Development Authority is investing in downtown, as well as the billions of dollars that will be spent to develop the new Denver Broncos campus and to build around Ball Arena.
Makovsky’s decades in the industry have left him and his investors with a sizable amount of real estate holdings, including a lot at 1546 California St., between the 16th Street Mall and Block 162 office tower.
Last year, Makovsky proposed a 673-foot spiral observation tower there.
“I know that many people think it’s whimsical to consider this,” he said.
Makovsky believes that, in a city so many visit because of the nearby mountains, “it can be a fairly major attraction.”
“It’s in the engineer’s hands in terms of design and structural analysis, which ends up leading to the reality of can it be done and at what cost,” he said.
Makovsky no longer runs Shames Makovsky day-to-day. That’s been passed to his daughter, Dorit Fischer. But he still comes into the firm’s Upper Downtown office five days a week from 8:30 to around 6 — a lot of that time is spent mentoring — and usually for a few hours on Sunday to plan the week.
“I’m not a golfer. I’m not the best reader in the world, and I’m not a handyman. So I’m here.
“As long as the good Lord lets me feel the way I feel today, I have no desire to do anything else,” he said, clarifying that he and his wife do like to travel.
This year marks 55 years since he and his uncle, who died in Israel in 2011, started Shames Makovsky. The firm has a staff of 35.
“It obviously feels good. I’m proud of what we’ve contributed to our community,” Makovsky said.
