Commercial Real Estate Development 
Geifman shift from groceries to properties
The Geifman family’s present business, First Equity Development, vaguely resembles the Quad-City grocery store chain that carried their name for generations.
The Bettendorf-based company still owns and manages most of the properties that once were Geifman Food Stores and many still house grocery stores. But today the tenants are Hy-Vee Food Stores as well as other retail and commercial tenants. What has not changed is the dynamics of having and running a family business.
Today, the company is run by father and son, Richard and Steve Geifman, who are the third and fourth generation, respectively. Involved from a distance are Richard’s sons, David and Jeff, who have their own careers in real estate and finance. Steve is the youngest brother.
“As the fourth generation I admit I walked into a good thing,” said Steve, the company’s president. But keeping the legacy going is a responsibility he does not take lightly. “I just imagine (if ended) all the aunts and cousins thinking ‘Oh, Steve; he’s the one who let it all go down.”
But instead, their company is in a growth mode with strip centers scattered across the Quad-Cities and a move into third-party property management. In recent years, First Equity took over property management of Northwest Bank’s office towers in Davenport and Bettendorf. In all, First Equity owns and/or manages 2 million square feet of commercial space.
It’s a different business model from the days of employing 500 workers at the Geifman stores and warehouse to having only one employee, Sally Toensfeldt, who is their administrative assistant. She has worked for the family for more than 37 years, starting at the grocery store. “We say she’s been in the family longer than I have,” said Steve, who is 36.
Steve, who worked in real estate for three years in Chicago before returning to the family business in 2001, said those who don’t have family businesses don’t understand the different set of challenges or the pressure of having an entire family dependent on its success.
“People say ‘oh, you work for your Dad. It’s easy for you to take off or come in late.’ Really, it’s just the opposite,” he said. “If you work for someone else, you don’t go to dinner with them and they’re not the grandparents of your children. If we have a bad day at work, it continues at the dinner table.”
For his father, the roles are reversing. But Richard remembers being the son in the father-son working relationship. “You have skin in the game,” said Richard, who now serves as chairman of the board. “His (Steve’s) future depends on the success of the business.”
The father and son, who spend a lot of quality time together outside the office, say they never go home angry at each other. “I can go home angry at conditions,” Richard said.
As a business owner, Steve said “you go home and things are still on your mind. You can be mad at your boss, go home and sleep and see him the next day. I go home and it’s not just my boss, it’s my dad.”
Their company traces its roots to Richard Geifman’s grandfather, George, a non-English-speaking Russian immigrant, who first supported himself selling brooms door-to-door. About 1913, he bought out the stock of a small grocery store in downtown Davenport and found his life’s work as a grocer.
His corner grocery store expanded to more stores and his sons Morris and Sam, who was Richard’s father, evolved into Geifman Food Stores. The chain grew to a dozen with locations all over the Quad-Cities. But in the mid-1980s with Hy-Vee entering the market, Wal-Mart moving into the grocery business and Eagle Food Stores still a very competitive player, the Geifmans made the decision to leave the grocery business.
“It was self-defense,” Richard said, recalling what a difficult decision it was to shut down a family business that had been in existence since the early 1900s. “Every time we were building a store, we were trying to build additional stores (strip centers). I found myself more drawn to the development end.”
Steve said while First Equity is a very different business than the grocery store, they have their own concerns about keeping properties maintained and full — and full with the right tenants. When he signs a new tenant, he said “You wonder, ‘was that the right tenant? Their financials looked good, but …’ ”
“What is it they say about family businesses? The first generation starts it, the second grows it and the third spends it,” Steve said.
“We’re growing it again,” Richard added.
