Commercial Investment Real Estate July/August 2016 | Page 14

CCIM
Q&A
Globe
Trotter
e
by Samuel S. Moon
Ensuring the safety and security of U.S. embassies and
ambassador residences globally are of prime concern to David
Lauster, CCIM, CIPS, CRS, senior realty specialist for property
acquisitions at the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Overseas
Buildings Operations.
“The laws in the U.S. generally do not
change very quickly, whereas in other
parts of the world, entire governments can
change overnight,” Lauster says. “You might
have gone to sleep with a liberal government
in power, only to awaken the next morning
to discover that a very conservative
government has taken over.” A 12-year
veteran of the U.S. State Department,
Lauster discusses his experiences with
Commercial Investment Real Estate. do it, and do it right. With that in mind,
I knew that if I was going to be managing
large commercial transactions for the U.S.
government, I needed to get serious, and, of
course, that is what the Department wanted
me to do. They immediately put me to work
finding office space and buildings around
the world.
CIRE: What made you decide to work
for the U.S. State Department? Lauster: The greatest hurdle was,
and continues to be, dealing with the
bureaucracy of doing business within the
government. Everything takes time. It is
nice having a principal that does not have
to obtain financing. The United States is
my principal and my employer. By the
same token, you have to clear many layers
of approvals to get things done, and that
can be a headache.
Lauster: I started in commercial real estate
back in the early 1980s when syndication
was big. I was hired by a broker to find
small shopping centers they could
syndicate and resell. But paychecks were
too few and far between, so I moved my
focus to the residential real estate sector.
In 2004, this job opportunity opened up,
and that is when I came over to the U.S.
State Department.
There are two sides to the real estate
business: residential and commercial.
You can do one exceptionally well, but it’s
highly unlikely that you are going to do
them both exceptionally well. So pick a side,
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July | August | 2016
CIRE: What were the initial challenges
in coming from the private to the
public sector?
CIRE: How would you describe a few
of your recent projects?
Lauster: The security hitches are the
biggest part of any project. I am currently
trying to find office space in one of the
former Yugoslav republics. One of our
David Lauster, CCIM
headaches is that we cannot find anything
near the center of town that has the
sufficient amount of setback and safety
features that we require to minimize the
risk to our Foreign Service Officers and
locally hired staff.
Our diplomatic locations need to be near
the heart of a city, so the population can
get to them for visa applications and other
services and where the diplomats who are
working for us can interact and meet with
their host government counterparts. You
cannot afford to be too far away from the
downtown area.
CIRE: What are the unique challenges
you face in today’s global market?
Lauster: A few years ago, we sold our
Embassy property in London to a major
Middle Eastern development group. The
proceeds of that transaction made the
construction of our new Embassy possible.
We are leasing the old embassy property
back until our new Chancery across the
river is completed. Then you have the
security requirement (and cost) of providing
24-hour surveillance and making sure no
one can get in and plant devices during
construction (like they did in Moscow).
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