JLL announced Monday that it hired Joshua Strauss and Scott Zinovoy, the co-founders of retail and entertainment real estate firm Dreamscape, as executive managing director and senior vice president, respectively. The pair will drive the firm’s experiential retail, entertainment, and mixed-use leasing initiatives.
The headline is a talent hire. The market signal is about where brokerage capital is placing its long bet.
Strauss and Zinovoy built Dreamscape around the thesis that retail real estate is no longer about square footage leased but about foot traffic generated. Their deal history includes the South Street Seaport in New York, the Arcade in Nashville, and Bayside Marketplace in Miami—all projects where the tenant mix is curated to draw visitors, not just fill space.
JLL is not buying a book of business. It is buying a capability set that the market is beginning to price differently.
Consider the economics. Experiential retail leases tend to be shorter, more complex, and more capital-intensive for landlords than traditional anchor or in-line deals. A food hall, an entertainment venue, or a pop-up concept requires higher tenant improvement allowances, more flexible lease structures, and a landlord willing to underwrite foot traffic rather than guaranteed rent. The brokerage fee on such a lease may be lower per square foot than a conventional deal, but the repeat business and the landlord relationship deepen.
The hire also reflects a shift in how retail landlords are thinking about risk. A traditional retail lease with a credit tenant offers predictable income but declining relevance. An experiential lease offers higher engagement but higher operational risk. The landlords who are winning today are the ones who can manage that trade-off. Strauss and Zinovoy have spent a decade proving they can structure those deals.
For JLL, the move is a bet that the retail leasing market will continue to bifurcate. On one side, commodity space leased to commodity tenants will be handled by algorithms and junior brokers. On the other side, complex, destination-oriented projects will require senior talent who can bridge the gap between landlord pro formas and operator business plans. The fee pool in the second category is smaller but stickier.
For the broader market, the hire raises a question: If the top talent in retail leasing is moving toward experiential and mixed-use, what does that say about the outlook for traditional retail? The answer is not that traditional retail is dead. It is that the growth in leasing revenue is no longer there. The marginal dollar of brokerage commission is now earned in the space between retail and entertainment.
Strauss and Zinovoy left Dreamscape, a firm they built, to join a global platform. That decision suggests they believe the next phase of experiential retail will require scale—access to landlord relationships across multiple markets, capital markets capabilities to help finance tenant improvements, and research data to prove the foot-traffic thesis to skeptical credit committees. JLL offers all three.
The hire also signals something about the competitive dynamics among brokerages. CBRE, Cushman & Wakefield, and Newmark all have retail platforms. But the experiential niche is still fragmented. By bringing in a team with a proven track record and a recognizable brand, JLL is trying to own that niche before it becomes a commodity.
For owners and developers of mixed-use projects, the hire is a reminder that the talent market is pricing experience over volume. If you are building a project that depends on drawing visitors, you need a broker who can sell the vision, not just the square footage. That broker is now more likely to be at JLL.
For lenders underwriting retail and mixed-use construction loans, the hire adds a data point to the risk assessment. Experiential retail is harder to underwrite than traditional retail. But a landlord with access to a brokerage team that understands the operating model is less likely to end up with a half-empty project. The presence of a dedicated experiential leasing team at a major brokerage reduces the execution risk for lenders.
The hire also reflects a broader trend in commercial real estate: the value is moving from the asset to the operating platform. JLL is not just adding two brokers. It is adding a capability that lets it compete for a different kind of assignment. The same dynamic is playing out across office, industrial, and multifamily. The firms that can offer specialized expertise, not just transaction execution, are winning the talent war.
Strauss and Zinovoy said in a statement that they were drawn to JLL’s platform, global reach, and collaborative culture. That is the standard language of a hiring announcement. The market should read it differently: They are betting that the future of retail leasing belongs to firms that can combine local relationships with institutional resources. JLL is betting that experiential retail is not a niche but a new mainstream.
The next test will be whether JLL can convert this hire into a measurable increase in leasing assignments for mixed-use and entertainment projects. If it does, expect other brokerages to follow with similar hires. If it does not, the hire will remain a talent acquisition that never translated into market share. Either way, the bet is now on the table.