Page 71 - BusinessWest September 18, 2023

COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE >>
Finding D
interview he and his partners at the Macmil-
Their
emetrios Panteleakis has talked often about the
Place
He remembers it vividly, and he refers to it often because ... five years later, he’s still shocked they ultimately won the contract.
Macmillan Group Strives to Be a Partner with Its Clients
That’s because they, and especially Panteleakis, were candid — as in candid — when it came to their assessment of the state of the building, its future, and what the new owners (and future BusinessWest Top Entrepreneurs) Vid Mitta and Dinesh Patel could and should do with it. Or not do with it, as the case may be.
Indeed, the brokers who came to the interview table were telling the owners they couldn’t lease the office and retail spaces that were vacant or soon to be vacant, Pante- leakis recalled, adding that Mitta and Patel were looking seriously at turning the property into multi-family housing.
“I thought I was brutally honest with them, and I had a list of 10 things they must do if they wanted to make this viable again in downtown Springfield,” he said. “It encom- passed the totality of the space, how they looked at it, and how they approached it. It was one of those calls where you get off the call and say, ‘this is never going to happen — we just went in there and punched these guys in the
BY GEORGE O’BRIEN
“It was one of those calls where you get off the call and say, ‘this is never going to happen — we just went in there and punched these guys in the mouth; there’s no way they’re calling us back.”
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lan Group had with the new owners of Tower Square when they were searching for a leasing agent.
BusinessWest << COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE >> SEPTEMBER 18, 2023 31
From left, Walter Kroll, Mark Healy, and Demetrios Panteleakis stand in front of the recently opened Big Y store at Tower Square.