Regional real estate vision, lasting impact earn Robin Team TBJ Legacy Award

Robin has been a CRE leader in the Triad over the past 36 years

Robin Team's developments and influence can be seen throughout the Triad -- from industrial parks that have created jobs to unique office and retail projects that are helping in the evolution of vibrant downtowns in the region's two largest cities.

In recognition of his achievements, Team will receive the 2022 Triad Business Journal Legacy Award. He will be honored Nov. 10 at TBJ's annual Commercial Real Estate Awards at Revolution Mill in Greensboro.

A Lexington native and Wake Forest University graduate, the 67-year-old Team is the managing partner of Front Street Capital, a Winston-Salem company with development, fund investments and asset management platforms. In 2018, Carolina Investment Properties, Team's development company that dates back almost four decades to his early real estate launch in Lexington, was merged into FSC, the equity real estate company he launched with son Coleman in 2014. Team moved his company from Lexington about seven years ago. FSC's management team includes Team's sons Coleman and Alston, Jonathan Starnes and Matt McInnis.

Team's recent developments include the nine-story 400 Bellemeade building, with 110,000 square feet of mostly office space and views overlooking the playing surface at First National Bank Field in downtown Greensboro and Bailey South, a unique 75,000-square-foot structure with office, retail and restaurant space in the Winston-Salem Innovation Quarter. Most recently, Garner Foods, the maker of Texas Pete hot sauces, moved into a nearly 200,000-square-foot distribution building in Winston-Salem developed by Front Street, part of a broader plan that could take that campus to more than 500,000 square feet. And closer to his roots in Lexington, Team in recent years secured industrial sites that have put Davidson County in a strategically enviable position to land jobs and investment for years to come.

"I love building industrial buildings that help companies do their jobs here in the Triad, employ people and help our local companies," Team said.

According to its website, FSC's portfolio includes more than $475 million in office, industrial, healthcare and mixed-use assets. FSC currently holds more than $420 million in assets under ownership and/or management. Team said his company has placed into service about $800 million worth of ground-up and acquired real estate and managed about 4.5 million-square-feet of office and industrial space.

Team has from his start in real estate has taken a regional approach, developing properties from one end of the Triad to the other, and beyond. Team's developments include more than 850,000 square feet of industrial space that he developed and sold to Ralph Lauren (NYSE: RL) as well as Premier Center in High Point and most of the Kimel Park medical offices in Winston-Salem. His company has several industrial and medical projects throughout the Triad and others as far away as Atlanta and western Tennessee.

"Robin has been a CRE leader in the Triad over the past 36 years. That alone is worthy of celebration," said Triad Business Journal President and Publisher Mark Gendle. "However, Robin’s success and vision throughout the past few years and the continued growth he managed during these unpredictable times is remarkable. Robin is leading Front Street Capital through some of the largest growth it has ever experienced, and the Triad is benefiting."

Team is the fourth recipient of the Legacy Award. Previous winners were Norman Samet, Mike Weaver and Marlene Sanford.

Team's career has evolved through the decades. He didn't start in real estate development. He began as a banker with BB&T (NYSE: TFC), then a small eastern North Carolina bank based in Wilson. He then transferred back to Lexington to work as director of marketing for a furniture company for "six or seven" years.

He got into real estate when contacted by Bob Grubb, a friend of his father's, whose company was converting apartments into condos. Grubb, whose son Clay has Grubb Properties and developed Link Apartment communities in Winston-Salem, asked Team to go to work for him.

After another six or seven years with Grubb, Team decided to go out on his own. His first project was an office building developed for Replacements Ltd. near the exchange of Interstate 85 and the Greensboro Urban Loop in McLeansville. He later expanded the building and sold it to Replacements.

"I felt like I got masters degree in finance working for Bob," Team said. "He was a genius at financing anything."

Team focused another "seven or eight" years on medical development, beginning with a small office project near Kimel Park, where he later developed most of the offices. When hospitals began gobbling up practices, he moved on to industrial and other office projects, which included Ralph Lauren, Premier Center and a 122,000-square-foot Volvo office building in Greensboro that FSC sold in 2021, but is expanding another by another 50,000 square feet.

Through the years, Team has developed and nurtured relationships with tenants and suppliers. For example, Landmark Builders, which won a bidding process for Team's first project, has been the general contractor for the vast majority -- Team estimates more than 90 percent -- of Team's developments.

"We pride ourselves and our company as being a relationship developer," Team said. "And that’s not just relationships with tenants; that’s relationships with our suppliers -- our large suppliers and our small suppliers."

FSC closed Front Street Properties Fund II at more than $40 million in 2020. Team said a third fund is planned to kick off in 2023.