Deborah Bauer: 2017 Entrepreneurial Spirit Impact Award Recipient
by Gail Kalinoski
   
Deborah Bauer began her real estate career in Austin, but it’s San Antonio where she’s made her mark. In 1992, she opened Drake Commercial Group after brokering several deals in the city. A specialist in large land tracts, Bauer is considered the “go to” person in the region to put large retail, office, multifamily and master-planned community deals together.
 
The founder and president of Drake Commercial Group, Bauer is a true entrepreneur, who has expanded her company from marketing and brokering land to include leasing and marketing of retail and office space, including master-planned and residential communities like the 413-acre mixed-use Cresta Bella and the 1,400-acre master-planned Stevens Ranch. Through the hard work and professionalism of Bauer and her son, Travis, who joined the firm in 1996, Drake Commercial Group is consistently one of San Antonio’s top brokerage firms and can usually lay claim to five to eight of the city’s top 25 commercial real estate deals.
 
Seeing the potential early on for mixed-use development at the intersection of Interstate 10 and Loop 1604, Bauer has successfully marketed more than 400 acres of this now bustling corridor for the past several years. In 2007, she sold 98 acres there in a deal that became the largest land tract sale in San Antonio that year. She also closed the largest single-tenant lease in several years in September 2016, when USAA selected Vista Corporate Center for its new headquarters location.
 
When Bauer started her business, she was one of the few women in commercial real estate that focused on large land tracts. Her business has steadily increased over the years, based on referrals from clients that have become her friends. She retains an office in Austin, where her real estate career started, and also has an office in Park City, Utah.
 
“Her conviction in the beginning, when she started her company, is truly a remarkable story of a struggling single mom who overcame so many obstacles and hurdles to make it,” said Kim Ghez, vice president of business development and escrow officer at Presidio Title, who nominated Bauer for the Entrepreneurial Spirit Award.
 
Active in CREW San Antonio, Bauer is considered a leader and mentor. She believes in helping her community, too, together with three other San Antonio business leaders—Trudy Madan, Cathy Amato and Christy Prescott—founding a 501(c)(3) non-profit group called Women Give Back that donates 100 percent of the money it raises to other non-profit charities.
 

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