How Emmitt Smith Pivoted From NFL to Commercial Developer

“Of course, I am Emmitt Smith.”

The NFL’s all-time leading rusher hit the red carpet at the Real Estate Gala recently, humbly introducing himself as “a former athlete, played 15 years in the National Football League.”

A long list of football accolades trails the three-time Super Bowl champion and hall-of-famer whose rushing record is predicted to be unbreakable. If that’s not enough for you, he also won Season 3 of “Dancing with the Stars” with Cheryl Burke.

But who is Emmitt Smith, CCIM?

The G.O.A.T’s commercial real estate ambitions started when he was at the height of his NFL career. “I’ve followed the footsteps of athletes that have gone before me and done the same thing,” Smith told The Real Deal.

Former Virginia Tech football star Steve Johnson, whose firm developed the 1 million-square-foot shopping center the Pinnacle in Bristol, Virginia, influenced him early on, according to a 2016 interview with Bisnow.

Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Roger Staubach and “Jerry Jones himself” also influenced and mentored Smith.

“Growing up in the Cowboys organization and seeing how Mr. Jones and the family have leveraged real estate into what they do has given me tremendous insight into how I’m going to run my business,” Smith told TRD.

His first deal was buying four Walgreens stores and selling them at a lower cap rate a few years later.

“It wasn’t a huge spread, but at the end of the day there was enough spread there to where I made a little bit of money and saw how the process worked,” he told Bisnow.

The man known for his epic leap abilities is vertically integrated in commercial real estate.

His firm ESLegacy, founded in 2008, develops retail, multifamily, mixed-use and hospitality, with offices in Baltimore, Dallas and Philadelphia. His EJSmith Construction builds his firm’s projects as well as some civil construction like highways and light rail, according to LInkedIn.

Smith also co-founded a commercial brokerage, E Smith Realty Partners, which he parted ways with in 2017. It was renamed esrp and folded into Cresa with 50 employees in 2022.

A recent deal, via EJ Smith Enterprises, has him developing about 250 apartments and the 125-key Hard Rock Reverb hotel at Maritime Park in his hometown, Pensacola, Florida, in partnership with Inspired Communities of Florida, the Pensacola News Journal reported last year.

Besides real estate, he also has a restaurant in Las Vegas, Emmitt’s Vegas, and he co-owns a Nascar team, Jesse Iwuji Motorsports.

“I’m fortunate and blessed to have my hands in multiple things, but at the end of the day, I’m just trying to be the best version of myself, and I’m trying to inspire others,” he said.

—Rachel Stone