Meet Cushman & Wakefield's Steve Langton: Olympic Medalist And Boston CRE Newcomer

Steven Langton had always dreamed of making it to the Olympics.

He had grown up playing sports at St. John's Prep in Danvers, Massachusetts, and at Northeastern University, where he ran track and field as a sprinter and jumper and was a captain for two years before graduating in 2006. But little did he know all those years ago that he would go on to be an Olympic bobsledder for Team USA.

"No one grows up bobsledding in the U.S.," Langton said. "The head coach said, 'If you'd like to give this a shot and put some time and effort into it, we think he could be really good.' Fortunately, they were right."

Langton competed in the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver and the 2014 games in Sochi, Russia, where his team won a pair of silver medals in the two-man and four-man events.

He entered the commercial real estate industry in 2019 with Cushman & Wakefield in New York City and has since worked on 228 office transactions worth $700M. In April, he was promoted to director, and now he is shipping up to Boston. 

Langton started in Cushman's Boston office on July 8, a move prompted by his desire to be closer to his family and discussions with his wife, who also works in commercial real estate. Langton said he is excited to bring what he learned from the Big Apple to Beantown and is focusing on attracting clients in the financial services, tech and higher education industries.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Bisnow: How did you get introduced to bobsledding? And what was the road to getting to the Olympics like?

Langton: Looking back, it really was a blur, and it was kind of a mix of poor life decisions and getting really, really lucky. I grew up in Boston, in Melrose specifically, so very close to Boston. I went to St. John's and Danvers, and then Northeastern in Boston, where I ran track and field. Being confidently realistic, I understood I wasn't Usain Bolt, and track and field at the university level was as far as that sport was going to take me.

So immediately after graduating, I got in contact with USA bobsled. There were a lot of ex-NFL guys, a lot of larger sprinters like myself, collegiate athletes at a very high level. It was one of those things where I was looking at what these individuals had done and their specific skill sets and realized that it aligned really well with what I had. I was invited to a small NFL-style combine in Lake Placid. I did incredibly well. I actually broke their camp record, and prior to ever stepping foot in a bobsled, because no one grows up bobsledding in the U.S.

Bisnow: How did it feel being at the Olympic Games?

Langton: Every Games was a little bit different for me — different goals. The way it works is the Olympics are every four years, and for those three years leading up to the Winter Olympics, you're competing. There's a World Cup circuit where there's eight races around the world, and then it culminates with the World Championships. In every fourth year, that culmination race is the Olympic Games. You don't actually make the Olympic team until two weeks prior to the games. So it's actually a lot like brokerage, in that sense, when you're pursuing a piece of business or a client, nothing is given. You always have to do your best work. The hope is that at the end of the day, you know you have the opportunity and your name is called.

Bisnow: What was the feeling of winning that first medal? How did you feel being in that moment?

Langton: That was my second Games. My first Games, I just wanted to make the Olympic team. Immediately, after doing so and competing in Vancouver, that shifted to 'Now, I want to win an Olympic medal.' We were positioned to do such. We had a great three years and we had a really good Olympic year leading up to the games. The most memorable feeling after crossing the finish line was relief, just because of the amount of work and effort and sacrifice that went into putting myself in that position. I was obviously elated. It was arguably the first dream I remember having was winning an Olympic medal. I didn't know it would be in bobsled, but definitely a large sense of relief that I had accomplished what I set out to do.

Bisnow: Did you always know you wanted to be an Olympian? Was that a big dream of yours growing up?

Langton: At a very macro level, yes. I think a lot of young athletes grow up, whether it be the NBA Finals or the Super Bowl or the World Series, or the Olympics, you see that as kind of the pinnacle of athletic achievement. As a very young athlete, we would always have the Olympics on, both summer and winter. And it was one of those things I just got very lucky that the opportunity presented itself, and I took full advantage of it.

Bisnow: How did that transition from Olympian to broker take place? What drew you to commercial real estate?

Langton: My longtime sports agent's father, consequently, was a very successful broker in New York City at Cushman & Wakefield. All athletes retire. Most athletes retire at some point and transition to something else. Mine was a little bit later, so like I do with most things, I did an incredible amount of due diligence. My sports agent's father's name is Jeff Lichtenberg, a successful broker, and he said to me, "Have you ever considered commercial office leasing? If not, it's something I think you could potentially be very good at, and you should give it a look." That was really the impetus, and that inflection point is where I started trudging down that road.

Bisnow: What made Lichtenberg say that? Are there any certain characteristics that you hold that make you a good broker?

Langton: Hindsight is 20/20. Commercial real estate brokerage is incredibly competitive. The competitors are highly skilled and everyone works incredibly hard, and there's a lot of teamwork working towards common goals. What it really comes down to is work and the end result being worth it. Real estate made sense to me. My dad was a developer, so I guess you could say I had real estate in my blood.

Bisnow: Are there any deals that you have been a part of that have defined your time in New York?

Langton: I worked on 228 transactions in my five years in New York for just about 2M SF and $700M in transaction value. The one that sticks out and is most meaningful to me is when we moved Michael Rubin's Fanatics. They do everything now, but they were a sports merchandising company. We moved their headquarters from Jacksonville to 125K SF at 95 Morton St. in the West Village.

Bisnow: Why did you decide to come back to Boston?

Langton: When I moved to New York, it was a bit reluctantly being from Boston. Boston is really all I had ever known. I'm very close to my family. My brothers are here and my parents are here. The move to New York was very much one for starting a new career in the U.S. city with the most commercial real estate and with hundreds of individuals that did what I wanted to do at a very high level.  From a mentorship perspective, it made a lot of sense. Again, I reluctantly made that move. But even moving there on day one, the plan was to always come back to Boston at some point. The timeline I initially put on it was five years. It was a bit arbitrary at the time, but coincidentally, I think I started in New York five years and four months ago. So check that box, hit that goal.

And the reason it happened now is because my wife worked for SL Green, which is the biggest commercial landlord in New York City, and she was at a point as well where she was thinking about other opportunities with different owners. She's in leasing as well, and it was really a conversation one Friday night. We had both talked about moving to Boston. She loves it here. Her parents have spent time on the Cape her entire life. So very organically, we said we want to start exploring this now.

Bisnow: How are you looking to attract clients, and are there any types of deals you are interested in pursuing?

Langton: One of the best things about New York – obviously I met my wife there as well – but I was very fortunate to work on a lot of transactions. I got a lot of deal flow experience, all the way from cold outreach to execution. The individuals that I was able to work with and observe and learn from were some of the best in the entire business. It really was like a masterclass in brokerage and I really do think it fast-tracked my career.

Now moving to Boston, I have some very good habits and a very good skill set. I call it from cradle to grave for a transaction — from building a relationship, earning a client's trust and doing a great job for them. I plan on taking what I learned in New York City, how I learned it in New York City, that execution, and applying that to the Boston market. It's a much smaller market, but there are some incredible tenants here, and with that skill set, I know I can be successful.

Bisnow: What are some of the biggest differences between New York and Boston, and how are you pivoting your work to fit the needs of this market?

Langton: The biggest difference is just the size of New York City. I've heard different numbers from different people, but it's somewhere between 450 to 470M SF of office. It's the biggest in the U.S. by far. Boston is roughly 70M. In terms of the work that I did there and how it's going to translate here, it's really this same skill set in procuring business and getting deals done. It's developing trust, identifying objectives for your client and working like heck to get them the best deal possible.

Bisnow: Are there any trends right now that you're following or keeping an eye on in Boston?

Langton: New York kind of leads the country. On the tail end of Covid, return to work was a major thing. And in New York most companies are largely back to work, with the exception of the tech industry, which was a huge part of the tenant base prior to Covid. They're just starting to pick their heads up and explore taking space again. The tech industry specifically in Boston, their return to office is still something that's very much ongoing ... That's something I'll definitely stay focused on. The other trend is flight to quality. We're seeing most people in the professional sectors, whether it be financial services or law firms, accounting groups, what have you, taking this opportunity to actually upgrade their space. Post-Covid, it became very evident and very clear that people want to work in a place that they're proud of.

Bisnow: What do you hope to bring to the Boston office, both coming from New York and as a professional athlete?

Langton: I learned from a lot of incredible people who had been in the industry for a long time. As such, I developed a very good skill set. You can learn something from everyone, and I'm hoping to bring new blood in this office and work with a number of the already talented brokers here. They can augment what they're already doing to pursue and do a great job for their clients. The biggest thing is Cushman & Wakefield has an incredible reputation in real estate in general, and getting deals done is a very large relationship component in being from Boston. I have a number of relationships with a number of people who have done really well. I built trust over the years and I'm hoping that I can leverage that to help them and their companies do what they're looking to do.

Bisnow: Knowing that your wife is also in real estate, how has that motivated you? Do you guys work off of each other?

Langton: That's a really great question, and it's the best way I can describe it. I'm very close to my parents. I spoke with them almost every day when I was in New York, and they would ask how my day was and what I did. It's very hard to explain what you do on a day-to-day, because different deals, different moves at different paces, and the lingo is obviously very different. My wife and I, we actually commute together every day. We did when we were in New York, and we do so now. So being able to speak the same language, and without translating, to understand what the other person is talking about is incredible. 

Bisnow: Are there any specific types of tenants you're more drawn to working with? Any areas you're particularly interested in doing business?

Langton: I've worked with clients in a number of different industries, like higher education, technology — more so technology before Covid because office usage in that specific subset has gone down quite a bit. I think it'll come back. But [I've done] a lot of tech, group tech work, a lot of growing creative group work, and financial services, which still is a big part of our practice.

Bisnow: I saw on your LinkedIn that you had just been promoted to director in April, can you talk about that transition?

Langton: I don't know if it's just who I am or being an athlete. I always set goals, and before even really understanding how the process works or how to get there, my goal was to hit director in five years. I didn't know one of those years was going to be Covid, but in five years and just about one month, I hit director. I felt accomplished. I felt like I checked that box. But the way my mindset works is the goalposts continually move. It's always on to the next thing. It's always making yourself better. I checked that box, you set a new goal and you go after that.

Bisnow: What are your new goals now that you are back in Boston?   

Langton: I want to be a managing director inside of five years. We're under five years now but in 10 years in the business: managing director.