“I’m pretty sure my mom was reviewing a lease when she was in the hospital having me,” joked RL Jones Properties broker and project manager Laura Jones. Her parents, co-founders Lloyd and Ramona Jones, had no ambitions to become real estate managers and developers. They owned a second-generation furniture store called Anchor Furniture. In fact, they met when Ramona came into the store one day to shop. In 1979 when they needed more room, they reached out to Steiner Furniture, which occupied a space of about 30,000 square feet, about buying the company out. The owner wasn’t interested at first, but he did agree to sell them the multitenant building that housed his store.

The Joneses became instant landlords. “We thought: ‘Hey, this is pretty nice having someone pay us to rent our building — and without the long hours of retail,’” Ramona recalled. So they looked for other buildings to develop and buy. Today, RL Jones Properties owns 23 strip shopping centers in the metro St. Louis area and two more farther south, totaling about 1 million square feet.

RL Jones’ first “office” was in the family home. Growing up, Laura listened in on her parents' phone calls and helped her mom keep the lease files organized. Instead of trips to the park on weekends, the family went on “van adventures,” she recalled. “They’d take us to the sites and properties they wanted to look at, and my sister and I would stay in the van and either argue or play games.”

Serving Her Tenants and Community

So it surprised no one when Laura made commercial real estate her own career, as well. She received her real estate license at 18, and her brokerage license at 21. Then, after graduating from Webster University with a degree in business management in 2009 and a stint teaching English to adults in Barcelona, she started working on prospecting, leasing and lease renewals for the family company. She turned out to be really good at it. In the business, “my dad’s kind of the softy and my mom is known for putting her foot down, and I’m pretty much in the middle,” she said. “I don’t put on a lot of pressure. I’m a salesperson, but I’m not too salesy.” Tenants feel comfortable talking to and being honest with her.

What Jones liked most about the job was helping small business owners find locations and helping them overcome obstacles. When the owner of a Chinese restaurant in Edwardsville, Illinois’ Montclaire Shopping Center was going through cancer treatments, she reached out to Jones about rent relief. “I couldn’t imagine trying to operate a business while being so sick,” Jones recalled. She gave some free base rent while still collecting on the triple net, and now, almost 15 years later, The Orient is still in business. “That story just shows how much we care,” Jones said. “If our tenants don’t make it, then we’re not going to either, so for the most part, I like to be nice.”

Jones understands what both tenants and a community are looking for. For example, when she took over leasing of the 40,000-square-foot Fox Valley Center in Arnold, Missouri, in 2019, it was 50% vacant. She switched up the tenant mix, focusing on local, service-based small businesses like nail salons, hair salons and a dentist. Today, only 2,000 square feet remains vacant. “I just went after the services the neighborhood would need,” she shrugged.

Finding Her Own Community, Too

Despite Jones’ natural talent for the Marketplaces Industry, as a young female and as an out lesbian, she wasn’t always accepted. “When I first started in the industry, it was very much male dominated,” she said. “Some men would kind of brush me off and say: ‘Let me talk to your dad.’ And I’d tell them: ‘Well, talk to me first, and see where we get.’ But I was a little intimidated at first.” 

Jones got a boost of confidence after joining the St. Louis chapter of CREW Network in 2019, a nonprofit for women in commercial real estate. CREW reminded her to be her authentic self and to do what she loved with pride and self-acceptance; a message she continues to pass on to others. “I have met so many attorneys, architects, brokers, bankers and other people in the commercial real estate industry that are women. It just really boosted my self-esteem, knowing people in the industry and getting to talk with other women about our experiences and how they handle things.”

Some of these women have partnered on Jones’ projects. For instance, RL Jones has subdivided a former Kmart in Crystal City, Missouri, and Jones has secured leases from Five Below, Marshalls and Harbor Freight. The architect, the structural engineer, the attorney and the lender all are women Jones has met at CREW events. “I contribute a lot of my confidence and growth toward being part of the organization,” she said.

That has taught her the importance of being a mentor to others, too.  At ICSC, which she joined a few years before CREW, she has served as the P3 Private chair of the Heartland States Region, and now she’s on the leadership team of ICSC’s Great Plains Marketplace Council. “Laura has really taken off in recent years with her leadership, both with ICSC and with other commercial real estate women in St. Louis,” said Capes Sokol shareholder Stacy Wipfler, former ICSC State Director of the Heartland States. She also is president-elect of the Commercial Division of St. Louis Commercial Realtors. “She has been involved in bringing together younger members in the area. She is very personable, very outgoing and eager to help those newer in the industry. Laura is a great representation of the new generation of leaders that are coming up in St. Louis.”

Today, Jones’ parents are semi-retired — they were coming back from an intense pickleball game during our interview — but RL Jones remains a family company. Laura’s wife, Jaclyn Jones, now works in the business as chief operating manager. “She tells people I make the money and she controls it,” Laura laughed. “It’s very true. I’m the reason we have the rent checks coming in, but she’s usually the one paying everybody. The other brokers like to know her because she’s paying their commission checks.”

Jaclyn and Laura have two boys, Tate, age 5, and Miles, age 2. Laura would love if they join the family business when they grow older, she said, “but I would definitely encourage them to go work for somebody else first and then bring all that knowledge back to our company so we can grow more.”