The plan was for Kevin Crowley to spend six months in Des Moines in the late 1970s, open a restaurant on Grand Avenue and move on to another town and another restaurant opening.

Crowley, then a recent college graduate, had been hired to travel across the country opening a chain of restaurants called the Rusty Scupper. It was his job to ensure the restaurant had a successful opening and then hire people to keep it successful. 

But before he moved on to the next restaurant opening, the owner of the Rusty Scupper chain asked Crowley to stay in the Des Moines area and help manage and lease a building the man, a California real estate developer, had built in West Des Moines.

“That was my baptism by fire into the commercial real estate business,” said Crowley, the 2020 Ivy College of Business CRE Professional of the Year. “At the time I didn’t know a ceiling tile from a window mullion. I knew nothing about commercial real estate.”

The experience, however, sparked a desire by Crowley to learn as much as he could about the commercial real estate business, from construction, financing and how to put deals together to finding tenants to lease space and space for tenants to lease. Crowley obtained his commercial real estate license and began working for Ken Grandquist at Coldwell Banker.

Crowley, chief operating officer and manager of NAI Iowa Realty Commercial, never left the Des Moines area. He and wife Sally live in West Des Moines with their 6-year-old daughter, Quinn, whom the couple adopted about five years ago. 

He’s active in the community, both the professional commercial real estate community and the Des Moines community.  

Crowley is president of the board of Polk County Health Services. He’s been president of the board for Youth Emergency Services & Shelter and was on its executive committee for about 10 years.

“He has always had a soft spot for kids and trying to find ways to enhance the way that we take care of kids with problems,” said Michael Knapp, chairman emeritus of HomeServices of Iowa Inc., Iowa Realty Co.’s holding company. “He’s the first guy that’s going to be buying a table that supports a charitable event. … He doesn’t show up because it’s a business opportunity. He shows up in support of the community.”

Early years in commercial real estate

Crowley worked for Grandquist’s commercial real estate company for about five years before the firm was transferred to what was then First Realty Co., which was where in the mid-1980s he managed the company’s commercial real estate office. 

The savings and loan crisis provided Crowley an opportunity to buy First Realty’s assets and begin Crowley Mandelbaum, a commercial brokerage he partnered with John Mandelbaum to start. 

“We literally were one of the first companies to have a market inventory in a database,” Crowley  said. “Because we were leaders in market information, it helped us be very competitive with [other, larger] real estate companies in the area.”

The company also landed a lot of national business because of the relationships Crowley developed through the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors. In 2001, he became a chairperson for one of SIOR’s committees, and in 2005 he became the organization’s president. Crowley traveled across the country as well as internationally, meeting office and industrial tenants, landlords and developers. 

Crowley Mandelbaum operated for about 10 years. Crowley and Mandelbaum parted ways when Mandelbaum became more interested in the development side of commercial real estate, Crowley said.

In 2002, Crowley sold his company to Iowa Realty Commercial. “It’s been a great marriage,” he said.

Knapp agrees.

At the time, Iowa Realty was looking to have a bigger impact in the commercial side of the real estate business and it made sense for the two companies to join forces, Knapp said.

Crowley “understands what it takes to make a brokerage business successful,” Knapp said. Crowley “knows how to put a deal together; how to match up people in space. He’s as good as anybody out there in the field.”

Managing during a crisis

Among Crowley’s strengths is mentoring newcomers to the commercial real estate business, said Kim Bakey, NAI Iowa Realty Commercial’s CEO. Bakey nominated Crowley for CRE Professional of the Year.

It typically doesn’t take new residential real estate agents long to close a sale, Bakey said. “In residential, you can have a transaction within a week to 60 days. Commercial is a much tougher business to get into as a new young agent.”

Crowley continually encourages young agents, giving them direction or leads and helping negotiate the closing of a deal, she said.

That leadership and experience will help during the current crisis caused by the pandemic, Bakey said.

“We know we will recover from this. There is just a period of time we need to work through, some challenges we need to address,” she said. Crowley’s experience “will help those younger agents through a time like this to make sure they’ve got a broad range of activity in their portfolios.”

Crowley is not a stranger to crises.

In the late 1970s, when he entered the commercial real estate business, interest rates were at 18% and higher “and everybody thought the world was going to end,” he said. “We survived, and I learned the business through one of the slowest, hardest times.

“In the 1980s was the savings and loan and farm crises. Terrorists attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and around 2008, the recession began. Now, another crisis is occurring – the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. 

“You learn to weather the storm,” Crowley said. “As a broker, I’ve always preached to my agents that you can make money in a market whether it’s going up or it’s going down. You just have to be able to be adaptable.”

The commercial brokerage business relies on time and vision, Crowley said. Some clients who may be growing may be able to find good deals on new space to move into. Others may need to scale back.

“Whether it’s upsizing, downsizing, right-sizing – that’s really the value that [commercial real estate brokers] bring their clients in a crisis like we’re in right now.”

Looking ahead to the future

Crowley has about 15 real estate agents who work with him at NAI Iowa Realty Commercial.

He describes his leadership style as hands-off.

He said he’s often asked how he would – or did – handle a situation. “I’m pretty quick to tell them that they have to develop their own style, their own way of doing something because they have to personalize it and be genuine. They have to make it their own.”

Crowley, who enjoys traveling and relaxing on beaches, will turn 65 in a few weeks but has no plans on retiring. 

“I really have never been the type of person who wanted to retire,” he said. “I may not be doing exactly what I’m doing today, but I anticipate doing it for another five or 10 years. As along as I’m healthy and can make a contribution, I will still be participating and doing what I’m doing.”