Doing your homework and establishing trusting relationships are important aspects of the real estate business, but so is perseverance, said Mason Zimmerman, a highly successful Atlanta-based expert who has had a hand in dozens of major development projects across the southeast.

Zimmerman was on the Auburn campus recently for the inaugural CityTalks Guest Lecture, which kicks off the 2024-25 CityBuilders calendar of events.

CityBuilders is an industry outreach program of the Institute for Real Estate Development, which is a joint program between Harbert College of Business and the College of Architecture, Design and Construction.

The program creates shared learning opportunities to benefit not only students and alumni of Auburn’s Master of Real Estate Development program, but all real estate professionals in the region. These opportunities include symposiums, panel discussions and webinars that bring leading real estate professionals together to share insights and best practices for economically sustainable development projects.

A crowd of more than 100, including professionals, students and faculty, attended the event inside the Lowder building.

Zimmerman is the chief executive officer of Pope & Land Real Estate, where he leads office and mixed-use development in Metro Atlanta and Charlotte. He is a University of Texas graduate and has earned numerous licenses, designations and awards in the real estate industry. He has held leadership positions in numerous trade and economic development associations.

He also is the managing director of Western & Atlantic Development, a company he founded in 1996 to invest in commercial properties throughout the Southeast including small storefront buildings in towns with historic significance. He has more than 40 years of experience in commercial real estate investment, development, asset management, financing, brokerage and leasing.

‘Enjoy the experience’

Zimmerman talked about his life experiences moving “from being a non-serious, unfocused student, to a very focused commercial real estate developer and investor,” and shared stories of the people and influences that shaped that evolution.

He presented past and current projects including the highs and lows of various developments and investments. The projects varied by size, region and product type covering a wide spectrum of sectors such as multi-family residential, commercial, retail, large venues and small downtown revitalization projects.

He also relayed his passion for investing in and contributing to the revitalization of small towns one storefront at a time and cited examples including the conversion of a formerly contaminated site into a vibrant mixed-use project in the core of a historic district.

Among the larger projects Zimmerman worked was the old Charlotte Coliseum, a 155-acre property owned by the city of Charlotte with a dormant coliseum he envisioned as a multi-use redevelopment.

Pope & Land demolished the coliseum in 2007, recycled 80 percent of the materials onsite, and began to make way for a new multi-use development. Post demolition, it re-branded the property as City Park and quickly signed up various parties to develop new retail, hotel, apartments and single-family housing on the property.

“The project was on a trajectory to be an amazing success until it was plagued by governmental bureaucracy and political infighting, which delayed the project until it was crushed by the Great Recession,” Zimmerman said.

He told about the difficult yet ultimately successful resurrection of the project into a vibrant City Park community, which is home to thousands of residents, more than 400 new hotel rooms and successful retail and restaurants. 

He stressed the importance of relationships. “In commercial real estate we are motivated by the pursuit of one deal after another. But the older you get the more you realize what’s more important is the shared experience of creating something new or achieving a goal together with others. Deals come and go, but shared experiences, good or bad, have long-lasting value.”

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