ICSC named its latest 4 Under 40 honorees in December to recognize their professional accomplishments and outstanding dedication and contributions to the Marketplaces Industry through ICSC volunteerism, mentoring and other charitable acts. Scroll down or click below to jump to each person’s profile:

Evie Gross Finds Value in Connections
Morgan Hill Konstantinidis Adds Value to the Projects and People Around Her
Jonathan Schwartz’s Time at It’Sugar Has Gotten a Lot Sweeter
Emalia Tamanikwa Caught the Development Bug and Hasn’t Looked Back

Evie Gross Finds Value in Connections

Evie Gross traded a potential career in fashion for real estate. As a student at Boston University, she landed an internship at Calvin Klein, and after earning a bachelor’s degree in business administration, she went to work at Lord & Taylor in the Executive Training Program as an assistant buyer. “I learned a lot and enjoyed it, but after three years, I didn't think it was a good long-term career fit,” said Gross.

A chance lunch with childhood friend Eve Sembler piqued Gross’ interest in a job working with retailers. Sembler, herself a former ICSC 4 Under 40 honoree, was working at the time on the national accounts leasing team at Brixmor Property Group, and Gross then joined the company as a representative in the national accounts group in 2016. She since has risen to the role of vice president and manages Brixmor’s relationships with 40-plus retailers like Bath & Body Works, DSW and Xponential Fitness.

Her early background on the retail side helped her form relationships with retailers. She knows from firsthand experience, for example, the role stores play in reaching customers and the need to buy ahead to get the right product in the stores at the right time. “That has really helped me connect with retailers from that different perspective,” she said.

Gross’ personality and approachability also contribute to her ability to form strong relationships with retailers and with the Brixmor team around the country, said Brixmor executive vice president Matt Ryan, who also is president of the South region for the company and a former ICSC 4 Under 40 honoree. Ryan met Gross when she joined Brixmor. “She has terrific energy and is eager to learn,” he said. “I really enjoy working with her, answering her questions and spending time with her because she is genuinely passionate about the business, and that was evident early on.”

Gross has logged a number of industry achievements. She became a member of the ICSC Next Generation Leadership Network’s 2022-24 cohort and will remain for an additional year as a 4 Under 40 honoree. She also was an ICSC Foundation Mary Lou Fiala Fellow. Among her many accomplishments while at Brixmor, she has sourced new concepts for the portfolio like Heyday, Solidcore, Rumble boxing and Happy Beauty Co.

One relationship that speaks to her tenacity is Bath & Body Works. When Gross first connected with representatives from the retailer at an ICSC event in 2016, they were skeptical that Brixmor centers were a fit. Gross stayed the course and continued to reach out until she landed a pivotal meeting with executives at the retailer’s headquarters in 2018. “Eventually, the relationship evolved, they started seeing success in the open-air space and I had already developed individual relationships with each of their dealmakers,” said Gross. Bath & Body Works is now among Brixmor’s top 40 tenants.

Another career highlight for Gross was Brixmor’s first Tesla service, sales and distribution center. Tesla filled 63,861 square feet in Houston that grocer Randalls previously had occupied. “It took several years to get done, but it’s open and it’s busy and it is really a great complement for the Woodlands community with tons of existing Tesla owners,” said Gross. She gets excited, she said, that Brixmor centers’ locations near rooftops make them the most efficient way for retailers like Tesla to reach their customers.

Both an understanding of how Brixmor works and her strong relationships with the leasing teams and leaders in different regions around the company have helped her succeed. “Those relationships end up benefiting the retailer by making it easier to navigate the leasing process within a large organization,” said Gross. She also prepares for meetings with retailers by studying their existing locations strategically and looking at Brixmor’s portfolio for opportunities for the retailers to open new stores or relocate from non-Brixmor properties.

Last year, Gross and Ashley Casey, who is now senior director of national accounts for Phillips Edison & Co., co-founded Retail Uncorked, a quarterly retailer panel discussion and networking event series. They host the events in different cities at fun social venues like local breweries. “These events have been a terrific source of networking for her, as well as creating opportunities for others to connect,” said Ryan.

Gross hopes to grow Retail Uncorked and develop Retail Unwind, a weekend retreat networking event with activities like hiking. “It’s really important to get out of the traditional networking approach of drinks and business suits and have something more informal because that leads to quality conversations and relationships, which I think everyone is really craving,” said Gross.

Gross enjoys adventures and meeting people in her free time, too. Last year, she and a team of commercial real estate industry friends ran in the Ragnar, which she describes as a crazy and fun 200-mile relay race over two days with little sleep.

She also enjoys hosting social gatherings at home, such as Shabbat dinners. “I really like bringing people together,” said Gross. “The same way that I enjoy doing it for work, I enjoy doing it in my personal life because it creates an opportunity for people to connect and not be on their phones and be present with one another. I find that to be really critical in today’s world.”

—Beth Mattson-Teig

While other kids her age were waiting tables or making mocha lattes, Morgan Hill Konstantinidis was putting together property marketing books and collecting rents. No surprise, then, that today, she’s vice president of development for Retail Sites, a developer and landlord based in Moorestown, New Jersey.

Konstantinidis’ introduction to retail real estate came from her father, Robert Hill, a 37-year veteran of the commercial real estate industry. She grew up hearing about deals, and during high school, she worked a summer job at Interstate Commercial Real Estate, her father’s employer at the time. She noticed early on that “the guys were doing the deals, and the women were running the administration and the accounting.” She loved learning about real estate, but she wanted to be doing deals and to be engaged in construction sites.

While attending The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Konstantinidis worked as a leasing intern at PREIT and sat in on a portfolio-review meeting with a retailer. They discussed how the stores were performing: what stores were doing well or just OK, and where changes were needed. “I found it really interesting at the time that you could have the same exact brand and still have such variation across the country and across the portfolio,” said Konstantinidis. She was drawn to getting closer to retailers, forming relationships and understanding the retailers versus just doing transactional work.

Konstantinidis graduated in 2009 from The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Science in economics and a real estate concentration. At that time, there wasn’t a lot of hiring going on in the industry. Her father recently had started his own firm, Retail Sites, and she thought she would go to work for him while waiting for the economy to improve. Fifteen years later, however, she’s still at Retail Sites and loving it. The opportunity to work with her father and grow the company has been invaluable, she said. She started as an associate, and she reached her current role in 2015. As vice president of development, she is responsible for the design, approvals and construction of more than 350,000 square feet of retail, grocery, medical and convenience store projects.

It also was her dad who encouraged her to become involved in ICSC. Among the volunteer and leadership positions she has held, Konstantinidis has served as Next Generation Committee Co-Chair and Idea Exchange Committee member for the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware region, as well as Eastern Division Innovation Chair and ICSC PAC Management Committee member since 2019. She also was a part of the 2020-22 cohort for the ICSC Next Generation Leadership Network and will participate for an additional year as a current 4 Under 40 honoree.

Thomas Onder is a fellow ICSC member who has known Konstantinidis for more than 15 years, dating back to their 2009 work on the ICSC Next Generation Committee for the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware region. A number of people were leaving the committee because of turmoil in the industry. “I had just got involved, and Morgan said to me: ‘This is the time when we need people to volunteer and step up,’” recalled Onder, a shareholder and chair of the Shopping Center and Retail Development group at the law firm of Stark & Stark in Hamilton. “She encouraged me and the rest of the Next Gen team to circle the wagons and push forward with our Next Gen activities.” The result was a core group of people who stuck together and made sure that the region’s ICSC Next Generation Committee not only stayed together but grew in numbers and programming, he added.

“Morgan is a smart, honest developer and someone who gets things done. She has an ability to focus on the project and get an excellent result by really inspiring and encouraging the people she is working with,” he said. “She also never takes herself too seriously and is fun to be around.”

Working for a small firm, Konstantinidis gets to do a little bit of everything — from working on land entitlements and visiting construction sites to attending township meetings for project approvals — and she likes the variety. Even different deals for the same client are drastically different, she said. In 2023, for example, Retail Sites was working with a Montessori school to build locations outside Boston, Philadelphia and Virginia Beach, Virginia. Though the school had a model, Konstantinidis had fun digging in to understand how each project needed to adapt to fit the market and the local customer base. “Adding value to a deal is not always just increasing the rent or lowering expenses,” said Konstantinidis. “Adding value can be extending the length of a relationship with a client or [offering] thought leadership within a project by coming up with a way to creatively solve a problem.”

Konstantinidis is proud of what Retail Sites has achieved: the growth, the projects it has completed and the people who have contributed to that success. As a busy mom, she’s finding ways to explain her job in real estate to her two young boys by taking them to the office and to visit projects. A self-described “track nerd” in high school, she’s also finding time to run. She completed a half marathon in November.

Konstantinidis recognizes that taking over as president of Retail Sites could happen, but it’s not her primary goal. Instead, she focuses on continuous learning and adding value to projects, both for clients and for the people with whom she collaborates.

She also wants to give back to the Marketplaces Industry through her involvement in ICSC and The Pipeline, a networking group for women in retail real estate. “I absolutely want to continue to grow and build upon the business that we’ve built” at Retail Sites, said Konstantinidis.

—Beth Mattson-Teig

Jonathan Schwartz knew early on that he had a passion for real estate. He earned his real estate brokerage license at age 18 and focused on finance and real estate in his undergraduate and graduate studies. The certainty has served him well. He began his career as an intern at AutoNation and in 2008 became a full-timer in the real estate department. He then moved to a role at Broward College and to BBX Capital after that. He assumed his current job as vice president of real estate and business development for It’Sugar, a growing specialty candy brand that playfully encourages its patrons to “break the rules” and eat “dessert before dinner.”

Schwartz can relate to the students with whom he has worked for the past three years under the ICSC Foundation’s mentorship program. “I enjoy speaking to college students who are looking at how they can get into the field,” he added. “They are excited about the industry, and I can identify with that.”

Schwartz’s path to It’Sugar began when he joined private equity firm BBX Capital in 2017 as director of construction. That year, the diversified holding company acquired It’Sugar, which had grown to 95 locations in 26 states and Washington, D.C., since opening its first store in 2006. Following BBX’s investment, It’Sugar focused on high-traffic leisure destinations, and in late 2019, it opened a three-story, 24,000-square-foot flagship candy department store at the American Dream entertainment and retail center in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Schwartz by then had switched to work directly for It’Sugar, but the COVID lockdowns disrupted his welcome. “My role quickly shifted from focusing on finishing the buildout of our store at American Dream and building more flagships to negotiating through COVID,” he said. With new stores in Honolulu, New York City, San Francisco, Miami and Chicago, the retailer now operates 120 stores in the U.S. and a location at the West Edmonton Mall in Canada.

It’Sugar currently is focused on boosting its mall presence, he noted. At Woodfield Mall in suburban Chicago, it just opened a 5,000-square-foot store that will emphasize bulk candy options. The brand’s use of bright colors, humor and loud music and its wide assortment of candy dovetail with the mall strategy to recruit more entertainment users. “Our environment is an entertainment environment,” Schwartz declared. “We’re curating all these specialty candy products and are creating an immersive experience. With bulk candy, shoppers can select their own flavors but it also becomes an impulse purchase that people can enjoy on the premises.”

It’Sugar isn’t committed to opening a set number of locations each year, but 10 to 20 is a ballpark, Schwartz said. The company has laid the groundwork for growth over the past three years. In December 2021, as the pandemic moved into his rearview mirror and he was able to turn his attention back to expansion, Schwartz attended his first ICSC event in Las Vegas. He went back just five months later when ICSC held a Las Vegas event on its traditional spring timing so he could meet, network and pursue deals with new and existing landlords.

At the same time, he was accepted into the 2022-24 cohort of the ICSC Next Generation Leadership Network — where he met professionals from various parts of the real estate business, including the capital markets and landlord sides — and will remain for an additional year as a current 4 Under 40 honoree.

Schwartz is also a member of Leadership Florida; serves as treasurer for Emerge Broward, which focuses on early career development and advancement of the next generation; and co-chairs the under-40 committee for the Greater Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce.

“To know Jonathan is to know someone who has the community at heart,” noted Urbanlime Real Estate executive vice president of national accounts Lanné Bennett, who nominated Schwartz for the ICSC 40 Under 40 distinction. “He brings passion and enthusiasm to everything he does. More importantly, Jonathan gets things done and has a team approach that lifts everyone around him.”

Emalia Tamanikwa Caught the Development Bug and Hasn’t Looked Back

Emalia Tamanikwa graduated from Marymount University with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics on a pre-med track — and then promptly reassessed her career path. She had planned to head to medical school, but she realized her passion lay elsewhere.

So she joined JLL as a financial analyst in 2015 and in 2020 became an assistant project manager at D|Watts, a tenant improvement construction firm in Alexandria, Virginia. She joined Edens as an associate in 2021 and was promoted in 2023 to director of development, leading real estate projects by blending her analytical expertise with a passion for driving meaningful change.

Her five years at JLL, though, are what sold her on commercial real estate, so much so that while working there, she earned a Master of Professional Studies in Real Estate degree from Georgetown University. “Starting at JLL revealed to me how my analytical and science backgrounds could lend themselves to real estate, and I started investing time to learn all of the different sectors within the industry,” said Tamanikwa. “I discovered that I really enjoy the beautification of things and that I wanted to learn the skill sets needed for construction.”

Exposure to the industry through the master’s program and confidence gained through networking with thought leaders empowered her to pursue a career in development. And she has embraced her development role at Edens, whose mission is to create places that enrich communities through human engagement. “I’ve had the ability to start thinking about real estate more strategically in terms of: How can we create the stories on the ground floor that elevate the mixed-use components in our vertical assets?” Tamanikwa said. “It requires some level of innovation, execution and integrity, but having the opportunity to be a steward of a place and build something that’s going to outlive you, for me, is a little gnarly.”

Among other projects, Tamanikwa is leading the design and construction of redevelopment projects at Edens’ Union Market District in Washington, D.C. The market opened in 1931 and served as a thriving commercial center and farmers market. Edens renovated and reopened it in 2012, reinvigorating the Union Terminal Market neighborhood. Now, the 20,000-square-foot market’s 40 merchants and food-and-drink vendors sit within a 45-acre redevelopment of residential, retail and restaurants, including two with Michelin stars. Tamanikwa has been overseeing work at the market from conceptual design to planned unit development entitlements.

She also leads the retail development of a large historical preservation project across the street from Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C.’s Shaw neighborhood. There, Edens has joined with two other developers to remake the landmark Bond Bread Factory and Washington Railway & Electric Co. buildings on Georgia Avenue. The project is seen as a way to strengthen the connection between Howard University, the Duke district and the surrounding neighborhood, where the nearby “Black Broadway” along the U Street corridor was a center of Black culture, social life and business during the Jim Crow era. “It’s really a story of place-keeping, not placemaking, because Georgia Avenue has a rich history and heritage that we’re highlighting,” Tamanikwa said. “As we consider prospective retailers and partners, we have the opportunity to create a space that serves as a love letter to Black communities, rooted in inclusion. This space will tell a story and foster engagement, social connections and cultural interactions through art and education, stories that deserve to be told.”

As Tamanikwa’s real estate career has advanced, so too has her participation at ICSC. While at JLL, her involvement with Project REAP — or Real Estate Associate Program, which empowers leaders of color in commercial real estate — led to her first ICSC conference. There, she met a mentor with whom she maintains a lasting relationship. Through ICSC, she also has connected with real estate professionals beyond retail and has become a mentor herself. “Over the course of time, I gained a lot of knowledge attending the different educational discussions,” Tamanikwa said. “I felt like ICSC provided a stage for me to build confidence and understand who the players were and what types of assets they were engaged with.”

More recently, Tamanikwa was a member of the 2022-24 cohort of the ICSC Next Generation Leadership Network and will remain for an additional year as a 4 Under 40 honoree. She also is active in the ICSC Launch Academy, providing guidance to students, many of whom like herself don’t have traditional real estate educations. “A lot of students are coming from dynamic backgrounds, whether it’s architecture, marketing, economics, math or some other field,” said Tamanikwa, who has recruited summer interns for Edens through the academy. “So educating them on how well their skill sets lend themselves to the real estate environment is extremely imperative to get more diverse thinking in our space.”

—Joe Gose