Answer extracted from the The Crexi Commercial Real Estate Podcast — listen to the full episode below.
How a shopping center job launched a 25-year retail real estate career?
A single conversation with a shopping center manager transformed Paul Kurzawa's entire career direction. Within his first week at Penrith Plaza in Western Sydney, he caught the retail bug through hands-on marketing work—getting retailers to approve catalog offers and managing signage—then spent an hour learning the fundamentals of how rent, expenses, and occupancy costs actually worked, a foundation that stuck with him through 25 years in commercial real estate.
One week that shaped a career in retail real estate
Kurzawa's entry into the industry came through a straightforward marketing role at Penrith Plaza, a Lendlease-managed shopping center in Western Sydney, Australia. His initial responsibilities were practical: coordinating with retailers on promotional signage and catalog approval. These weren't glamorous tasks, but they pulled him directly into the operational heartbeat of a functioning retail center.
The turning point came inside his first two weeks, when he asked the general manager questions about how the center actually operated financially. Rather than dismiss a junior employee, the manager spent a full hour walking him through the economics of the business: how rent was structured, what expenses looked like, how occupancy costs factored into the equation. That single conversation crystallized concepts that would define his entire professional approach decades later.
What made this early experience decisive was not just the knowledge transfer, but the direct exposure to the energy of a working retail environment. Kurzawa absorbed the constant activity, the interaction with merchants, the foot traffic—the visible proof that retail centers are living ecosystems, not just real estate assets. This visceral understanding would later inform his approach to placemaking and mixed-use development across brands like Westfield, Caruso, and eventually Centennial.
"It means the connection that a person makes with that place. It's probably the magic that helped retail survive the pandemic."
Paul Kurzawa — Chief Executive Officer, Centennial. With more than 25 years of experience across lifestyle, open-air, and enclosed retail environments, Kurzawa specializes in redevelopment and placemaking. He started his career at Lendlease in Sydney at Penrith Plaza before relocating to the United States in 1996. His work has included the $660 million redevelopment of Willis Tower in Chicago and major mixed-use developments including the Americana at Brand and Westfield Century City, with senior leadership roles at CenterCal Properties, The Blackstone Group, Westfield, Caruso, and DreamWorks Animation.
The formula—practical responsibility combined with mentorship in business fundamentals—proved remarkably portable. When Kurzawa relocated to the United States in 1996 through Lendlease's Career Advancement Plan, he carried this foundation into roles at Westfield, where he witnessed the company grow from 35 assets to approximately 68 assets, giving him scale and complexity few early-career professionals experience. By the time he joined Caruso and later led major redevelopment projects, that Penrith Plaza lesson had calcified into an instinctive grasp of the relationship between tenant economics, customer experience, and long-term asset value.
Key takeaways
- A mentor's willingness to explain business fundamentals—rent, expenses, occupancy costs—in a single hour created a foundation that shaped 25 years of career decisions.
- Hands-on exposure to retail operations (signage, tenant coordination, foot traffic) proved as valuable as formal training in understanding how shopping centers function.
- Early retail experience instilled an understanding of placemaking and community connection that distinguishes strategic real estate development from purely transactional asset management.
- The combination of operational work and business literacy at entry level can be more formative than credentials or titles acquired later in a career.