CoreNet Global Member Profile -- Ricardo Garat

Museos Deportivos' Ricardo Garat Combines Real Estate Skills with Interactive Sports and Entertainment

Ricardo Garat, a partner in Museos Deportivos, has served as CoreNet Global Argentine Chapter Chairman of IDRC and CoreNet Global since 1996.

Can you imagine yourself as a spectator in the midst of a soccer match? Picture your own football game simulated in a small stadium.

Using state-of-the-art technology, Museos Deportivos S. A. in Buenos Aires, Argentina, plays on our passion for sports and provides an interactive setting that makes the action come alive. Behind the scenes, hundreds of CD players, TV screens and high technology equipment create an engaging sports and entertainment experience.

One of the men behind this interactive vision come true is Ricardo Garat, Partner of Museos Deportivos. A native of Buenos Aires, Garat became a member of IDRC and NACORE in 1996 and is now on board with CoreNet Global. He is also the Chairman of the CoreNet Global Argentine Chapter.

The 20,000-square-foot museum, which opened in April 2001, hosts approximately 150,000 visitors per year. Begun in 1998, the project is the result of the renovation of an existing facility, which is now home to the premier Boca Juniors Soccer Team.

Garat, who was responsible for overseeing the design and construction of the development, drew from not only his consulting, corporate and commercial real estate experience, but also from his educational background. He holds an undergraduate degree in industrial engineering and an MBA from Purdue University. In the process of implementing the project from the ground up, Garat also learned something about integrating operating infrastructures, or converging place with people and technology.

"A relatively new trend, the sporting museum combines the theme of an interactive, entertainment complex and the soccer team track record. Based on ideas generated from the UK and Spain, it represents an extra source of income for the Boca Juniors Club," he says. Garat and his investors want to develop other soccer museums internationally, and are considering the major cities in Europe as possible future locations.

While Garat has found a successful niche in the otherwise crisis-challenged Argentine economy, the corporate real estate profession is barely emerging there.

"In Argentina, one of the greatest challenges we face is that the corporate real estate function is not recognized," Garat explains. "Some international corporations have the capability internally, but most firms handle their own real estate needs from an administrative function of the organizational chart."

"Consequently, it is difficult to find the contact responsible for the real estate function within a company," he adds. This factor, combined with the economic upheaval, have made it difficult to expand the CoreNet Global membership base there beyond the small group of 12 current members there. When approaching non-members, it has become important for Garat and others to seek out potential members who hold titles that do not convey real estate management but are responsible for it.

Since the 2000s and in line with the current economic crisis, many companies in Argentina have downsized and closed, affecting the prospects of commercial real estate and related service providers whose businesses depend on client accounts with non-real-estate companies that have real estate or facilities needs.

"Our needs can best be filled by CoreNet Global continuing with the same line of ideas, developing the concept of the corporate real estate function and the benefit of aligning the RE strategy to the corporate strategy," explains Garat. "We need more colleagues to gather in the same place and address topics relevant for the region. Sharing knowledge with colleagues and member networking are most important. Research that can be applied directly to the problems of our region is beneficial," he continues.

"If you have a strong chapter," he observes, "you start to generate what I call the informality needed to just pick up the phone and say, 'I have this problem or need. Do you have a comment or solution for this?' I think we should aim to have that kind of relationship among the members of the local chapters."

In addition to participating in the IDRC Leadership Forum held in February 2002 in St. Petersburg, Garat has been a part of and helped to organize two IDRC Global Executives Tours in Buenos Aires, held in 1997 with 100 attendees and in 2000 with 150 participants.

Garat has an unsurprising affinity for sports. While he's among the legions of members who enjoy their golf game, he's undoubtedly one of the few who actually plays polo. It's one reason he loves riding horses.

Three of their four children are following in his footsteps, studying marketing, industrial engineering and business administration. But the youngest - still in secondary school - may some day also follow the family tradition.