When Caroline Jenkins was a student at Samford University, she spent Saturdays volunteering at the Birmingham Museum of Art. While downtown, she spent time wandering cobblestone streets, passing by century-old warehouses. The mid-2010s was a time of rebirth and reinvestment in Birmingham, Alabama. Cranes were everywhere, and Jenkins, who spent her middle and high school years in a small town in Tennessee, was enthralled. One day, she remarked casually to one of her mentors, “When are they going to build another skyscraper downtown, do you think?” Her mentor responded: “Caroline, there's no demand for a skyscraper. Do you see all these vacant buildings?”

It was the first time Jenkins, who double-majored in marketing and management, really started thinking about the meaning of “place” in real estate and the idea of putting community needs at the heart of development. This idea of “civic-minded real estate,” bringing a holistic approach to development that builds on and revitalizes urban communities, would become a driving force of her early career.

Today, Jenkins, the ICSC Foundation Mary Lou Fiala Fellow for 2022-23, works as development manager for Birmingham-based planning and redevelopment advisory firm Orchestra Partners. She manages development projects that total more than $93.7 million. Many involve the redevelopment of historic buildings to meet the needs of the city today. “Other developers will focus on one specific product type. … They might develop outparcels or might only do garden-style apartments, but … we find a building and then we dream up the best use for the building for the space,” she explained.

Jenkins first worked with the concept of civic-minded real estate after graduation at a small real estate firm in Knoxville, Tennessee. While providing financial analysis for the acquisition and renovation of subsidized housing, she recognized how important affordable housing was to the health of a city. “If you’re not including affordable housing as a piece of redevelopment, you’re missing out because the people living in affordable housing could be nurses; they could be firefighters or police officers or the waitstaff at all these restaurants you’re investing in,” Jenkins said. “Having different layers of housing is a huge piece of creating a holistic approach to community development.”

But affordable housing, Jenkins knew, was only one piece of successful urban redevelopment. She was looking to help make communitywide change. So when a mentor set up an interview with the co-founders of Orchestra Partners, two young entrepreneurs who had moved back to Birmingham in the mid-2010s to work on the city’s redevelopment, she knew she had found her people. “One thing Hunter [Renfroe, one of the founders] said to me that really resonated was that when he was in Boston, he saw a $100 million dollar development happening across the street but at the end of the day, it was just a drop in the bucket. It didn’t drastically change the lives of anyone living there, but a $100 million development in Birmingham, Alabama, is a game changer,” Jenkins said.

Old Buildings and Young People

One of the projects Jenkins is heading up is the redevelopment of Mercantile on Morris, a mixed-use redevelopment of a 1905 building. It features 47 residential units and 14,000 square feet of commercial space.

While historic preservation is important to Jenkins, she also understands that Millennials and Gen Z are market drivers. One thing that entices them, she knows, is a density of retail shops from local entrepreneurs. However, many younger entrepreneurs couldn’t afford to open brick-and-mortar locations, so Jenkins got creative. She created 500-square-foot retail spaces in the basement of the Mercantile. “We dug out the foundation under the building to create a walk-through,” she said. In a dark space that otherwise wouldn’t have been leased, she created a hub for new retail.

With her insight into the younger culture, Jenkins also lobbied hard to allow Airbnb to be part of the condo document. The sales agents and attorneys argued against it, saying it would cause liability issues and would turn potential buyers away. But Jenkins believed there were young investors who were interested in buying condo space precisely for their Airbnb potential. She won the argument and went on to sold all 47 units in the middle of COVID, many to young professionals. “One of my strengths is: I trust my gut,” she explained.

Jenkins — who, in addition to her full-time work, is pursuing a master’s degree in real estate development at Georgetown University — cites mentors as a reason for her early success. “They’ve given me a lot of good advice and helped open doors for me,” she said. Today, she mentors dozens of Samford students interested in real estate. She teaches them, as she once was taught, the importance of “making sure to always do the work but also to look left and right” because that’s the only way you’re going to grow, she said.

Following that philosophy, Jenkins applied for the ICSC Foundation’s Mary Lou Fiala Fellowship, which pairs each fellow with four women in senior-level positions in the marketplaces industry. Fellows also participate in a formal, executive leadership education and training program or executive coaching sessions and receive complimentary registration and hotel accommodations at ICSC Las Vegas, as well as the opportunity to attend high-level networking and leadership events.

Jenkins sought this mentorship opportunity to expand her own network and lens and to learn from renowned female leaders. “Working in a male-dominant industry, it’s hard to find female mentors that are real estate development focused,” she explained. “I’ve been given many opportunities by women and truly believe in the power of the female network.”

In five years, Jenkins herself hopes to be a partner at Orchestra Partners. One of her goals is to expand Orchestra’s small-town client advisory business. “Real estate is a huge story of small towns, especially with historic building stock,” she said. “There’s a lot of opportunity to champion them and show their story.” Her long-term retirement goal is her own portfolio of properties in a small town.

Jenkins acknowledged that’s a long way off, but one of her strengths, as a developer and as a young professional charting her course, is an ability to look into the future. “I like having plans,” she laughed.