photograph courtesy darrell cobbins
Ask Darrell Cobbins how his family has been involved in Memphis’ artistic and economic growth, and he’ll point you in a multitude of directions: Acting. Singing. Art. Museums. Real Estate. You name it, and one of his relatives was part of it. Growing up, the Whitehaven native spent much of his time immersed in significant Memphis institutions, building relationships, and learning what makes Memphis tick. Now celebrating his 15th year as a business owner, the president and principal broker of Universal Commercial Real Estate is looking to his next step, while using his platform to tackle many of the challenges facing Memphis.
After almost two decades in the commercial real estate business, Cobbins can reflect on the first act of a successful career and be satisfied with what he’s built in the city where he grew up. But his line of work, and the relationships he has crafted over the years, have given him the ability to enact change in the community. And Cobbins is well-positioned to make those changes, with a journey that’s taken him through Memphis’ business, artistic, and philanthropic sectors.
Trailblazing and Building Relationships
As a kid, Cobbins spent a lot of his days in and around the real estate business thanks to his grandfather, Samuel. “I was raised by a single mom; my parents divorced when I was two,” he says. “So my grandfather was a big figure in my upbringing and maturation. But he was a real estate man, and he ran a company called Peace Realty that was more residential-focused. The rest of my family were in the arts — singers, actors, directors. So there were a lot of big personalities around growing up.”
Cobbins and his late older brother, Donnell, ended up attending Memphis University School and were among the first Black students to graduate. (Donnell Cobbins Jr. died of Covid-19 in December 2020, at age 49.) It was during his time at the school that Cobbins began to formulate his strategy for navigating the business world. “I’m just speaking from my experience, but going to MUS really opened up my eyes to the world,” he explains. “It was my first time going to school with students of all nationalities and backgrounds. I found it very important to be able to find commonalities and develop friendships with people who don’t think or look like you.”
But it wasn’t just personal relationships that he focused on. As a high school student, Cobbins noticed that many of his classmates were able to secure internships at banks and other institutions. After asking around, he realized the father of one of his classmates was president of National Bank of Commerce, which became SunTrust (now Truist). He looked up his number in the school’s directory, called him up, and asked if he could be considered for an internship. The bank had no openings that year, but the conversation led to opportunities during the next three summers.
When he started work at Cushman & Wakefield in 2001, Cobbins says he was the only ethnic minority working in the industry in Memphis. “Now, 20 years later, the number is still in the single digits,” he says. “That just has to change. So I’m hoping increased mentorship can make a difference, because everybody deserves a chance to see if this is the career for them, like I had.”
“Once again, that was really surprising for me coming from Whitehaven,” says Cobbins. “Relationships really did mean a lot, and being in an environment where you have proximity to these relationships makes a huge difference. These are the kinds of things that I began to learn at MUS. Just being in that environment, among all these other ambitious students, gave me the confidence that I could also succeed in whatever I pursued after graduating.”
After a wide college search, Cobbins decided to remain in Memphis and attend Rhodes College, where he double-majored in anthropology and sociology and played on the football team. While he initially assumed he would study business, a chat with one of his football teammates steered him in the direction of social science instead.
“I remember that in my first class, my professor explained what it was to be human,” he recalls. “We delved into understanding how people make sense of the world that they live in. We studied social constructs within society, like race, class, gender, and how they all intersect, and that was all really informative to me.
“Looking back, and thinking about the issues facing Memphis, I think these are really important topics for when people are looking to become involved in community organizations. The work that I’ve done, even in real estate, working with community organizations and grassroots organizations, helping them accomplish things at the neighborhood level: All of that draws on that training and that way of thinking.”
Path to Commercial Real Estate
After graduating from Rhodes in 1997, Cobbins took the time to gain experience at companies like Guardsmark, and worked on his own professional development by enrolling in Leadership Memphis at 23. “That program was really empowering,” says Cobbins. “It really felt like I could go out there and impact the city.” His next step was to take a job at the Greater Memphis Chamber.
The value of relationships became even more pronounced for Cobbins after he became an economic development officer for the Chamber. “With all the great initiatives they have, you’d be sitting in on board meetings with a lot of big executives and leaders, and end up on a first-name basis with a lot of them,” he says. “Being able to relate to and build relationships with outside partners was important, too. You had to be flexible, depending on whether you were working with a large company or a small mom-and-pop business.”
Cobbins is proud of the work he did for the Chamber, but after a couple of years, he could no longer resist the draw of real estate. Considering his family’s background, “I always assumed I’d end up in that business,” he laughs, “but it just took a little longer.” His job, focused on economic development and job growth, was intrinsically tied to the commercial real estate industry, so he immediately took the eight-week class to get his real estate license and started preparing for interviews.
A mentor referred him to the late Memphis broker Wyatt Aiken, who gave Cobbins a list of ten important real estate brokers and an assignment: Call each person on the list and ask for a short meeting to learn more about the industry. “He gave me a great piece of advice. He said, ‘Darrell, I want you to be politely persistent. You’re nice, you’re cordial, but you need to leave all of them with the impression that you will not be going away.’”
Cobbins came away with a much clearer picture of the industry after speaking with nine individuals from the list. But one issue continued to nag at him after all the interviews. “I kept asking them, ‘Why aren’t there more Black people in commercial real estate?’” he says. “I got a lot of answers, but never one that really made sense. And part of me thought, you know what, I need to get into the industry to change that. To be an example that a minority, a Black person, can succeed in this industry and change the whole paradigm. That was what really got me fired up to see this through.”
The interviews paid off. Eventually, in 2001, an offer came from Commercial Advisors (now Cushman & Wakefield), and he started work as a broker. Cobbins spent years honing his craft, with clients like FedEx, Baptist, and various community organizations.
After four years, he realized he needed to return to school to bolster his knowledge of finance and accounting, so he enrolled in the executive MBA program at the University of Memphis. “I felt I had a good background with sociology and anthropology, but wanted to cover all my bases with the financial side of things,” says Cobbins. “To be able to get in the head of a client I’m serving, a CEO or CFO, and be able to analyze things from their perspective.”
He graduated from the program in 2007 and continued working for Cushman & Wakefield. Cobbins knew that he wanted to eventually start his own business — but he’d figured that was a ways off. A call from an old classmate, Andy Cates, moved up the schedule significantly.
“We’d stayed in touch, so we got lunch when he moved back to Memphis and talked about our future plans and what I wanted to do,” recalls Cobbins. “Then he said there might be an opportunity to speed things up.” Cates’ brother, Staley, and his partners were just about to acquire the Sears Crosstown building, but needed someone to work on acquiring real estate around the property. They said, ‘Why don’t we be your first client?’ So I went home, talked to my wife about it, and we knew it was a great opportunity.”
Growing Universal Commercial
Cobbins founded Universal Commercial Real Estate later that year, with the name a nod to Universal Life Insurance Company, the Black-owned insurance company founded by Dr. Joseph E. Walker, and only the second Black-owned business in the United States to attain million-dollar-capital status. After focusing on Crosstown and weathering the 2008 financial crisis, Cobbins spent much of the past 15 years expanding his client roster and becoming a major player in Memphis’ real estate game.
“It’s been 20 years in the industry, and 15 running my own company now,” muses Cobbins. “That got me thinking about what I want my next steps to look like in the industry. You can see how important relationships have been in my economic growth and edification, and that’s helped me achieve my early goals. Civic work and community engagement have always been important to me, something I’ve been involved in for a long time, so I decided I wanted to start mentoring more folks like myself who want to get into the industry. Many won’t come from backgrounds where they’re able to cultivate good relationships. So mentoring for me involves bringing more young people on board and teaching them how the industry works.”
Cobbins now does for others what Aiken did for him: He gives prospects a list of names and helps arrange meetings with prominent players in real estate. It’s his hope that getting a foot in the door will help create more opportunities for minority candidates to become brokers.
When he started work at Cushman & Wakefield in 2001, Cobbins says he was the only ethnic minority working in the industry in Memphis. “Now, 20 years later, the number is still in the single digits,” he says. “That just has to change. So I’m hoping increased mentorship can make a difference, because everybody deserves a chance to see if this is the career for them, like I had.”
But Cobbins’ civic contributions don’t just extend to mentorship. He is actively involved in many organizations around town, serving on the boards of the National Civil Rights Museum, MLGW, and the Brooks Museum, among others. Cobbins has also served on the Tennessee State Board of Education for years since being appointed by then-governor Bill Haslam. “It’s been a lot, but at this stage, I think it’s really important that I invest my time and energy into these efforts. It’s all in the service of creating a better Memphis.”
Cobbins recently became involved in the Orange Mound Tower project, spearheaded by Victoria Jones and James Dukes (this magazine’s dual Memphians of the Year for 2021). Creating a hub where Black businesses can thrive is something that he believes can be a game-changer for Memphis. “You see hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in neighborhoods like Downtown, and then there are neighborhoods that haven’t seen any for several decades,” he says. “That sends a message, if day after day you see blight, while you look elsewhere and everything’s shiny and new.”
A trip to Chicago several years ago helped convinced Cobbins to join forces in the Tower effort. He and a friend were looking for somewhere to explore, and were referred to the South Side, a majority-Black area. After stepping out of their Uber, Cobbins was stunned. “I saw a Starbucks, a restaurant with people hanging out on the patio, fitness places, and new shiny apartments. I’m like, this is a Black neighborhood and all this stuff is new and it’s vibrant. People were hanging out and looking happy and thriving.
“And I wanted to cry, because in Memphis, I’ve never seen that. Not outside of Downtown, Midtown, or East Memphis have I seen that kind of commercial vibrancy. So that’s why I became involved with the Orange Mound Tower. It’s a long road ahead, but I feel great about the project.”
As Cobbins celebrates his 20th year in the industry and is ramping up civic contributions that he hopes can better Memphis, his business is also positioned for significant growth. Universal Commercial Real Estate recently signed on as the Tennessee affiliate for a newly formed national commercial real estate firm called Greenwood CRE. The firm is minority-run and boasts huge clients such as Microsoft, Verizon, and Comcast. While it’s a great boost for Universal, it aligns with Cobbins’ goal to create more diversity in the workplace.
“There’s nothing that quite exists like this yet in the commercial real estate space,” he says. “So this is a big deal. For me personally, it will allow me to do more in Memphis and also widen our footprint nationally. We’ll really be able to use that platform to mentor more folks and create real change in the industry.”
