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FAREWELL TO FARBER

A pioneer who believed in sharing ideas, he helped launch ICSC

By Nancy Cohen

Developer Leonard L. Farber, CSM, ICSC’s first chairman (1957-1960) and a man so instrumental to the organization’s launch that he was dubbed Founding Farber, died July 28 after a struggle with Parkinson’s disease. He was 89.

In addition to the prominent role he played in the early days of ICSC, Farber was among the pioneering developers who contributed to the proliferation of shopping centers in the post-World War II era. The Leonard L. Farber Co., which operated out of New York City before relocating to Pompano Beach, Fla., in 1970, developed some three dozen centers, including Florida’s Galleria at Fort Lauderdale, Orlando Fashion Square and Pompano Fashion Square.

Farber often said that he had never anticipated the extent to which the industry would expand, but he clearly foresaw the part ICSC could play in its development, envisioning it as the forum in which members of the nascent industry could learn from each other and grow.

At one of ICSC’s first meetings, in May 1957, when the newly elected board named Farber chairman, he articulated what has remained the association’s guiding principle, recounting a maxim he had learned from his father. “The idea behind it,” Farber later recalled, “was the old ‘If I have a penny and you have a penny and we each give the other our penny, we each have one penny. But if I have one idea and you have one idea and we share our ideas, we each have two ideas.’ As the industry took form, not too many mistakes were made, because developers were checking on each other and looking out for trouble spots. The whole idea of [competitors] exchanging ideas is remarkable and is the reason for the relative lack of failure.”

Farber was “the greatest influence in helping to define the purpose of [ICSC],” said Albert Sussman, ICSC’s first president (1958-1986), in 1982. “He gave it its direction, its guiding doctrine. He helped persuade members to share their knowledge.”

His fellow pioneer developers remember that philosophy of sharing ideas. “I cut my teeth on Leonard’s first ICSC meeting, when Leonard was president, when he told me about A&P,” recalls Melvin Simon, co-chairman of Simon Property Group. “He made me want to be a developer because he spoke from the heart. I had a great deal of respect for him.”

Farber also vigorously pursued a philanthropic career. He eventually dedicated significant amounts of time and money to dozens of causes, including the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Broward County, and the Philharmonic Orchestra of Florida.

Among his numerous activities over the years, he was a member of the National Council on the Arts and served on the executive board of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. He was a trustee and longtime supporter of both Nova Southeastern University and Brandeis University and served on the board of governors of Nova’s School of Business and Entrepreneurship. At Brandeis he sponsored the Leonard L. Farber Library, which opened in 1983, and the Robert D. Farber Archives, in honor of his late son, an alumnus.

Farber’s lifelong commitment to community involvement and good works was an outgrowth of his own rags-to-riches story. “I think I owe it,” he once said.

Farber was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1916, and raised in the Bronx. The son of an immigrant tailor, he earned money after school selling peanuts, popcorn and hot dogs at nearby Yankee Stadium. After graduating from high school, he worked as a printer’s assistant to support his family following his father’s death.

In 1935 Farber got his first job in real estate, collecting rent in Harlem, where he seized an opportunity to broker the sale of a building. He was subsequently hired to manage that building — his first commercial management job, which he ultimately expanded into a thriving business.

But as with many of his generation, Farber’s plans were sidetracked by World War II. He enlisted in the Army and fought in France and Germany, earning a Purple Heart and two Bronze Stars.

Resuming his real estate career upon returning home, Farber discovered an opportunity to develop grocery-anchored open-air centers in the burgeoning suburbs. But he and other early developers soon realized they could move forward more profitably by learning from one another’s experience.

“We all had one thing in common — a tremendous thirst for knowledge about this infant industry to which we were committed,” Farber said.

In 1957 they banded together to form ICSC, which began with a total membership of 36. As chairman, Farber worked tirelessly to establish the organization, handling its day-to-day operations for months before recruiting Sussman as chief staff officer. Throughout his three-year tenure, the courtly Farber genially twisted arms to raise funds and recruit members.

“Of course, developers consider it a sacrilege to put up their own money,” he later joked. “It’s hard to explain how the ICSC survived its first few years financially.”

In tribute to his leadership during the association’s formative years, the membership elected Farber lifetime trustee when he stepped from the helm in 1960 — the first of only two times this honor has been granted.

“It is truly amazing that from such a humble beginning, ICSC has grown to be the premier retail real estate trade association, with over 56,000 members in over 100 countries throughout the world,” said ICSC President Michael P. Kercheval. “The respect the association and the shopping center profession have earned globally is the result of the vision and life work of Leonard Farber.”

Farber loved sailing. Each year he and his wife, Antje, spent several months voyaging on the Stoneface — a yacht bearing Antje Farber’s nickname for her husband, whose mien was famously inexpressive.

“He is one of the few whose presence will be felt long after his life has ended, as it now has,” said John T. Riordan, who served as ICSC’s president from 1986 to 2001. For ICSC, he is ‘the Founding Farber,’ who from the first day of the establishment of our association remained our guide. Soft-spoken, his few words carried great weight. Our first-ever lifetime trustee, he was active, available and helpful to all as long as the wasting Parkinson’s disease he suffered allowed.”

Riordan describes Farber as “a person of enormous accomplishment. He was above all else a great friend to so many. For me and my wife, Mary, our fondest moments with Leonard were not the many and exciting ICSC programs and excursions, but rather a few days of fun with him and his wife, Antje, on the Stoneface, their beloved home on the water. Leonard Farber simply cared, and those who felt and benefited from his care know how deep and lasting it is.”

Farber is survived by his wife and by three daughters from a previous marriage.

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