From Publix to Costco, St. Pete CRE exec is go-to hire for retail giants

Rachel Wein is proof you don’t have to work for a big commercial real estate company to have a big impact on the industry. 

Wein’s company, St. Petersburg-based Wein Plus, has worked with some of the biggest names in retail real estate the last 15 years, at various times helping to grow and shrink multimillion-dollar portfolios. The list of clients she’s had, or has, is the gold star of one-word retailers: Publix. Walgreens. Kroger. Costco. “I come in and assist the team that’s already there,” Wein says. 

“Nobody does this in the same way that I do,” Wein adds. “I really don’t have any competition.”

Wein’s influence in the industry goes beyond the retailers she works with. She’s currently on the advisory board of Office Depot and the board of Alpine Income Property Trust, a publicly traded REIT, based in Winter Park, that owns and operates single-tenant net leased commercial income properties. And she’s a go-to speaker and panelist for industry events and conferences, talking often about the e-commerce vs. brick and mortar conflict in retail, and how companies can succeed in both. 

Costco is her latest and currently only client; the membership warehouse club leader hired Wein in April 2025 to help expand the firm’s global portfolio. She has since been to Costcos worldwide, from Jacksonville to Japan. “I sincerely hope I’m with Costco until the end of time,” says Wein. “They are such a great client.” 

A previous great client for Wein was Walgreens. The drugstore giant’s then division vice president of real estate, Chris Noble, hired Wein in the summer of 2020. The chain was about to embark on a plan to sell off hundreds of properties to real estate investment trusts and other investors and lease back some stores. Noble called the strategy a complicated process that required someone with both deep industry contacts and a deep knowledge of market trends, insight and data. Wein, he says, was a perfect fit for what became a three-year assignment. 

“She guided us through all the ways we can do this,” says Noble, now a principal at Deerfield Capital in Illinois. “And she is so well-connected. She knows everyone in the industry.”

Photo by Mark Wemple

Wein grew up in Palm Beach County and graduated from the University of Florida, where she earned a masters degree in architecture, and later a masters in real estate. Earlier in her career she was a senior associate with Ernst & Young in Philadelphia, working on mergers and acquisitions, including deals involving Dunkin/Baskin Robbins and CVS-Eckerd. She also worked with an EY team that invested $2 billion in capital programs, focused on gaming and hospitality assets, in Biloxi, Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina. 

She returned to Florida in 2007 to work for the Sembler Co., a St, Pete real estate development and management firm. Wein worked directly with longtime Sembler CEO and executive chairman Craig Sher, who she calls a key career mentor. One of her main accounts at Sembler was Target. But in 2008, like nearly every other retailer, Target put a hold on new stores. That, and the general industry slowdown, led Wein to start her own company, in 2009. Sembler was a client early on, which led Wein to work for Publix, helping the Lakeland grocer reconfigure its massive real estate portfolio.

“I love my job,” Wein says. “In my small way I get to have an impact on different things happening in the world. I get to work with fantastic people on amazing teams who are part of the very best retailers in America. 

In her words

Rachel Wein writes regularly on social media and her website blog about her retail commercial real estate travels and insights, both for clients and non-clients. Two recent samples include: