Lance Gilliam
Lance has spent most of his career focused on retail user transactions, including tenant representation and project development. He has represented national, regional and local restaurateurs and retailers throughout a broad market area including Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and most of the southeastern and western United States.
Lance's clients include and have included local | regional | national firms such as ALDI, Amegy Bank, Bally’s Total Fitness, Cabela’s, Circuit City, Food Lion, Frost Bank, The Grocers Supply Co., H-E-B, iPic Entertainment, the J.C. Penney Co., Kroger Co., Macy’s, Michaels, Office Depot, PetsMart, Price Club, Regal Entertainment | Edwards Theatres, Sun & Ski Sports, The Sports Authority and Washington Mutual.
He has also represents or has represented national and Houston local restaurateurs including The Besh Restaurant Group (New Orleans’ Borgne, Domenica and Restaurant August), Charles Clark & Grant Cooper (Ibiza, Coppa, Brasserie 19) Jason Gould & Scott Tycer (Aries, Gravitas), Rebecca Masson (Fluff Bake Bar), Monica Pope (t’afia and Beavers) and Philippe Schmit (philippe).
Lance has shared responsibility for leasing a numerous significant retail projects in Houston, Texas. Successes include Town & Country Village, one of the country’s first lifestyle shopping centers, Washington Heights, a transformative urban infill redevelopment, and Copperwood Village, The Shops at Bella Terra, The Shops at Riverstone and Silverlake Village --- all community shopping centers closely associated with master planned communities. Lance has played on active role in the redevelopment and/or disposition of the former Pin Oak Stables, Town & Country Square, a former Incredible Universe, a former Garden Ridge Pottery and retail developments at the intersections of Harrisburg at Wayside and Montrose at Westheimer.
Having shared responsibility for the opening of more than seventy grocery stores in the Houston metropolitan area, Lance has advised the City of Houston as it has created and implemented successful economic development programs to incentive grocers to construct stores in so-called food deserts where lower-income families often times have limited access to fresh foods. He has shared Houston’s successes and his knowledge at the invitation of The Food Trust with The Pew Charitable Trust, The Clinton Foundation and, in hearings hosted by the State of Texas’ House of Representatives, the American Heart Association.
Lance is a partner in Waterman Steele Real Estate Advisors, a member of The Waterman Steele Group and, until 2013, was the managing partner and shareholder in UCR Houston and its predecessors Moody Rambin Interests’ Retail Properties Division which he co-founded in 1993. He was also a shareholder in Moody Rambin Interests.
Lance is an active member of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) having served both as a faculty member and as the Dean of the ICSC University's School of Open-Air Center Development. He is accredited by ICSC as a Certified Retail Property Executive (CRX), Senior Certified Shopping Center Manager (SCSM), Senior Certified Leasing Specialist (SCLS) and Certified Design Professional (CDP). He is a full member of the Urban Land Institute (ULI). For the ULI Houston District Council, Lance has served as a member of its board, co-chair of its Advisory Services Committee, retail market expert, panelist, speaker and mentor to and for various committees and sponsored projects.
Lance was formerly Executive Vice President of Grubb & Ellis Retail Properties Division in Houston, Texas. He was the company's top-producing retail broker nationally for the four years preceding his departing with Ed James to form Moody Rambin Interests' Retail Properties Division. He was also a member of Grubb & Ellis' National Retail Tenant Services Group. During his tenure at Grubb & Ellis, Lance earned the Senior Marketing Consultant (SMC) designation and was named to the Henry S. Miller / Grubb & Ellis Chairman's Council.
A past president of The Children’s Museum of Houston’s board of directors, Lance continues to serve on the museum’s advisory board of directors. Lance co-chaired the museum’s building committee. Together, they lead the museum’s doubling in size. This expansion was part of a $35 million capital campaign that allowed the museum to better serve almost 1,000,000 visitors --- children, their parents, their caretakers and their teachers --- each year. Toward fulfilling his commitment to the education of our community’s children, he serves on the Greater Houston Partnership’s Early Matters Committee and as an advisory committee member to The Collaborative for Children.
Until August 2016, he also served as a member of the Houston Housing Authority’s (HHA) board of commissioners for more than six years. For more than four years, he was chairman of the Authority’s board. Serving more than 25,000 families throughout the city of Houston, HHA’s mission is to improve the lives of its constituents by providing quality, affordable housing options and promoting education and economic self-sufficiency.
Lance has previously served as a member of the vestry and building committee member of St. Martin’s Episcopal Church where he and his family are parishioners. He also has served as a board member of the Urban League of Houston.
In 1977, Lance earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in Real Estate with Honors from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He also attended Southern Methodist’s graduate program in Real Estate and Regional Science.
Lance is a native Texan. He and his family have lived in Houston for more than fifty years. He is married , has two sons, a daughter and granddaughter.
Waterman Steele
Partner
