Ask Joshua Simon why it’s important to give, and he will say, “Because I can make a difference.” As president of SimonCRE, Joshua is not your typical 30-year-old. He founded the company in 2010 at the tender age of 25 and started from nothing without any help.
“We’ve grown in five years,” Joshua says of the full-service commercial real estate development company, which has developed and leased more than 2 million square feet of retail space throughout the United States. The firm specializes in retail ground-up development, redevelopment and single tenant build-to-suit projects.
According to Joshua, when you start with nothing, it changes the dynamic of how things are done. “I didn’t want to be beholden to investors and have to answer to somebody,” he says. “We’ve bootstrapped it with no investors. We got bank loans and do our job.”
Spreading his wings
Born in Chicago, Joshua has been in the Valley since he was 12. He became a bar mitzvah in Scottsdale, and he majored in business and communications at Arizona State University. During college he did an internship for a development company and continued to work for the company through college and afterward for a total of six years. He then decided it was time to go off on his own. “I like to create, and I like to be much more in charge of my own destiny,” Joshua says. “I felt it was time for me to spread my wings. I knew if I would fail that this was the time to fail as I had no wife, no kids, no responsibilities. There’s something about youth that makes you more of a risk taker.”
That attitude and chutzpah paid off. Most of SimonCRE’s growth has been in the past year. The company has 15 full-time employees and expects to develop $120 million in construction in the next 12 months spread over 40 projects in nine states. Among the employees is Joshua’s mother, Nikki Simon, who is office manager and bookkeeper. “If you can’t trust your mother, who can you trust?” he asks.
Getting back to Jewish roots
As a child, Joshua attended Sunday school and Hebrew school in Chicago. Things changed when he came to North Phoenix, where he says there were not as many Jewish kids his age, “so I fell off the bandwagon.” While in college he looked to join a fraternity; while deciding on two different houses, one Christian and one Jewish, he chose the Jewish fraternity. “It’s one of the better decisions I made,” Joshua says, and some of the guys from the house are still his best friends.
That led to involvement in the community and with the Jewish Federation as he began attending events. He was the chair of Young Jewish Phoenix and chaired Mazelpalooza for six years, raising more than $100,000. “We grew it from a couple hundred people to close to a thousand people last year,” he says. Although he says the event does not serve any real religious purpose, it does bring together Jewish young people on Christmas Eve in a fun, social gathering. He says he is no longer personally involved in the event as time does not allow, “so I donate more with my checkbook.”
Giving and getting connected to Israel
Joshua gives because he says he can make a difference. “I get people involved,” he says. “I’ve seen the difference I’ve made.” While on a Detroit mission with Stuart Wachs, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix, he and Stuart visited Dan Gilbert, founder of Quicken Loans and majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team, who is very involved with the Jewish community in Detroit and giving back. Joshua was impressed and wanted to effect change in Phoenix. “I want to fix it so that people see it’s cool to give,” Joshua says. “We need to create a better environment here for better giving.”
He previously served on boards including those for City of Hope and the Jewish Federation of Phoenix and is the current chair of the Southwest Idea Exchange for the International Council of Shopping Centers. Joshua continues to be a major donor to a variety of Jewish and non-Jewish charities that are important to him. He is a Ben Gurion Society member, which is one of the first organizations to which he donated. He is a major gift donor for the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix, with donations of $10K per year, as well as being involved with Young Jewish Funders of Arizona, A Giving Circle, of which he is a co-founding member.
During college while on a Birthright trip to Israel, Joshua knew the deal was sealed. “On a bus there were about 55 of us, and it was such a bonding experience to see what an amazing country Israel is,” he says. “Now I have Israeli friends. I see how the news portrays Israel, and it sometimes is completely not how it really is.” The trip solidified his deep connection to Israel, a need to see the Jewish state continue to thrive and his strong desire to make a difference.
In 2014 he began his involvement with AIPAC and joined its New Leadership Network, which gets involved with the political process in understanding how to help push important issues for Israel – important not just to Jews but to the general population as well. “It empowers me to want to try to make a difference,” Joshua says. “The power of the purse is much stronger to help make sure elected officials know it is important to us.”
Although he is a huge supporter of Jewish causes and Israel, Joshua also loves his Sun Devils and is active in the Arizona State University Foundation. Education is also very important to him. “We need to keep those kids here (in Arizona),” he says. “The better the education, the more employers will locate here and help the economy.”
Along with the goals of taking care of his family and ensuring his employees are successful, helping his community is also high on Joshua’s list. “My job is to ensure everyone is successful.”
For Joshua, charitable giving is a form of satisfaction. “I feel like I’ve been lucky,” he says. “If you have the ability to do it, you should do it. Find your passion when it comes to charity and giving back to the community. Like all things in life, if you don’t follow your passion, you won’t want to stay engaged and make a difference.”
