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We love real estate. We started our careers in this business, and have grown into seasoned professionals over the years. We relish the challenge and opportunity that this asset class brings, and most importantly—we all share in the importance of living our core values, which are:
Every day we strive for excellence in all of our undertakings and to be the best partner for our investors, stakeholders and team members. However, what defines us as a company and as individuals is our deep commitment to living our core values. When tested, we uphold these values, making lasting impacts on the lives of our team members, tenants, partners, and investors.
We have endured many challenging business cycles, from the gas crises of the 1970’s, the 1987 market crash, the 1997 real estate downturn, the dotcom bubble, the Great Financial Crisis, to the Covid-19 pandemic. Through all of these turbulent times, we’ve remained steadfast to our core values and commitments, centering them in every decision we’ve made over the years. In these moments of tremendous economic shock and uncertainty, Big V has supported tenants through financial hardships, paid vendors in full to protect their employees, and kept our team intact without furloughs or salary cuts. It's during these tough moments that we’ve proven who we are.
Our core values aren't just words—they're the principles we live by, especially when faced with adversity. While others talk the talk, we walk the walk.
In 1942, my grandfather opened a corner grocery store in Florida, New York named Victory Markets. For 15 years, he would wake up at 3:00 AM, drive to New York City and purchase fresh fish, fruit, vegetables, and meat for the store, and then hustle back before the store opened at 7:00 AM. He and my grandmother would work in the store until it closed an hour before midnight, stocking shelves, sweeping floors, and ringing up customers.
He maintained this routine for 6 days a week for 15 years with no vacation, never stopping to rest. Victory Markets earned the reputation of being the only store in the area that had fresh goods every day.
Around this same period, he changed the name to Big V Supermarkets, as another supermarket was using the name Victory Markets.
Eventually, my grandfather decided that he wanted to open a 30,000 sq ft supermarket. The problem? He didn’t have enough capital, so he sold 6% 30 year notes to every customer who walked through the door, raising the funds to develop, build, and open a modern supermarket.
Big V grew to 34 supermarkets, 20 owned shopping centers, and 4,500 team members in the Northeast by adhering to the core values that were inaugurated with the opening of the first store. Eventually, the supermarket business was sold, but we retained some of the shopping centers.
Today, Big V has evolved into a vertically integrated real estate company that owns and operates high quality open air retail shopping centers in growing and strategically located Sunbelt communities.
My grandfather personified grit, integrity, perseverance, and patience. Today, these are qualities I strive to cultivate within myself and my team. By executing on our core values, we honor my grandfather’s legacy, and continue to drive superior value for our investors, team members, and greater community.
I could rattle off all of the standard MBA buzzwords: innovation, investment, risk adjusted strategies for growth, organizational structure, and so on and so forth. But, what has ultimately driven our success are team members who live our core values.
Core values are easy to list on a website, talk about, or throw into onboarding materials, but actively practicing these values is difficult. Truly living your core values—that’s where the rubber meets the road. It’s not what we say, but what we do that defines us—and this is how I define success at Big V.
At Big V, we’ve built a team of excellent people who ask themselves day in and day out “am I living and making decisions based upon our core values”—and I’m proud to say that every day, we can confidently say “yes!”
Success takes many forms. We’re eager to hear how your core values drive the success of your business—leave a comment below!
Great post!