JLL has named a successor to Kristin Mueller as head of its retail property management unit as it adopts a new strategy reflecting the industry's shift to mixed-use and lifestyle centers.
The Chicago-based real estate services firm appointed Paul Chase as president of Lifestyle Property Management in the United States. It's a new position, but Chase will essentially be taking over Mueller's responsibilities. A 31-year JLL veteran, Mueller has left the company. Her title had been president of Retail Property Management.
The changes and Chase's new position reflect a move by JLL to integrate its retail management and mixed-use services across more than 400 retail properties. JLL said today's most successful properties blend retail, residential, office, hospitality and entertainment to create destination experiences. "The team’s new vision ensures every property — regardless of use type — benefits from JLL's extensive experiential real estate knowledge," the firm said in a statement.
JLL credited San Francisco-based Chase with playing an instrumental role in shaping the firm's retail leasing and mixed-use business nationwide. Prior to assuming his new role, Chase was a managing director for JLL's Retail Property Management's national agency leasing team. His résumé includes roles as an asset manager and team leader within various leasing divisions, giving him a track record of tripling the leasing business for JLL "by creating innovative new approaches within the property management business," the firm said.
Chase told CoStar News on Thursday that JLL property management is taking a strategic shift to follow where brick-and-mortar retail is going: the rapidly expanding mixed-use sector.
"If you just take a step back and you look at the most successful properties right now in the industry, they're mixed use," he said. "They create the most value. They create the most excitement. We wanted to stay ahead of it. ... We still have a lot of properties across the country that we're very active with, but this is just changing the narrative of where we think things are going."
Doing so will include even applying lessons from lifestyle centers to properties such as malls, according to Chase.
"Our single assets, open-air centers, we're very successful in this world, and we'll continue to grow that," he said. "But what we'll do is, we'll use the learnings, what we're doing in lifestyle management, and it'll flow through everything. And it could be the simplest things of how we approach the single asset — how we do the marketing towards it, how we do the place-making — which is really critical, a lot of focus in that area."
Mueller had been at JLL in various positions since 1994, according to her LinkedIn profile. In December 2022, she succeeded JLL Retail President and CEO Greg Maloney, who retired for a brief period. She held the position of president of Retail Property Management for roughly three years.
As for Chase, he "is a proven innovator and industry visionary who brings forward-thinking leadership to our organization," Mark Zettl, president of JLL Property Management, said in a statement.
"We are certain that his ability to anticipate market trends and drive transformational change will reshape our U.S. retail property management operations, positioning us ahead of the curve as the industry evolves," Zettl said.