Here’s My Story: The Unforeseeable Future

Mr. William Schottenstein

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Before his passing in 1971, my father, Leon Schottenstein and his brothers had built a successful retail and real-estate enterprise in our hometown of Columbus, Ohio. About ten years later, our branch of the family left the retail business to focus solely on real estate. By this time, I had gotten introduced to the Chabad movement through my sister and her husband, Chaya and Daniel Wuensch. As a family, we had helped fund the Landow Yeshivah day school, which was run by Chabad in Miami Beach, in memory of our father.

Two years later, in 1984, after our family made another substantial donation to Chabad, my sister and her husband were invited to an event of the Machne Israel Development Fund, and the following year, my brother Tuvia and I were invited too.

Machne Israel was a philanthropic organization founded by the Rebbe to advance Chabad’s work, and twice each year members of this group were granted a private audience with the Rebbe.
We were honored and excited, though unsure of what awaited us, having never participated in such an event before. I was deeply moved by the experience, though I was so nervous that my memories of that first Machne Israel gathering remain vivid only in feeling, not in detail.

All I can clearly remember from that first encounter was the Rebbe’s remarkably gentle manner and his extraordinary eyes. People had told me, “Once you see his eyes, you’ll never forget them.” That turned out to be an understatement. Decades later, I can still recall how striking and penetrating his blue eyes were, even as his gaze was profoundly kind.

As the years passed, I became increasingly comfortable at the Machne Israel gatherings. They offered a wonderful opportunity not only to interact with the Rebbe, but also to request a blessing or seek his advice. The attendees themselves were an engaging and fascinating group of people.

My brother and sister frequently shared stories they had heard about people’s encounters with the Rebbe, about advice he had given and the remarkable results that followed. I tended to view these accounts as being somewhat apocryphal, or at least embellished. That skepticism never diminished my admiration for the Rebbe nor my respect for Chabad, but I found it difficult to believe that these events had unfolded exactly as described.

Unexpectedly, after attending these Machne Israel events for three or four years, I experienced a story of my own.

At the time, our family business was preparing a major redevelopment of a prominent property in downtown Columbus — a high-rise building on a corner overlooking the Ohio Statehouse. Built in the 1920s, the building was more than sixty years old and had a terra-cotta facade. Terra-cotta requires regular maintenance, and unfortunately, this building had been neglected for decades. By the time we acquired the property, the facade had deteriorated so severely that pieces were detaching from the structure, and we had to place netting around the upper portion of the building to prevent debris from falling. Its condition was so poor that the city was considering condemning and demolishing it — a scenario that would have been disastrous for our redevelopment plans.

Compounding this challenge was the fact that the country was in the midst of a recession. During boom times, one might feel confident undertaking such a project, but in a recession — with little pre-leasing and no certainty of tenants — this redevelopment carried significant risk. Because of these difficulties, my brother urged me to seek a blessing from the Rebbe. Initially, I resisted. I believed we shouldn’t trouble the Rebbe with business matters when people were seeking blessings for far more critical issues, like their health. Why impose upon him for something as mundane as a commercial venture? But my brother persisted, and eventually I agreed to ask at the next Machne Israel event.

Approached the Rebbe during our one-on-one meeting — as was the protocol at these events — I said: “We are working on a major project in downtown Columbus, and we would appreciate receiving a blessing for it to succeed.”

The Rebbe gave his blessing, but then he suggested that we make additional plans for the project to be larger. He explained that if we expand our plans, G-d will increase his blessings, and we will be successful beyond our expectations.

This made absolutely no sense to me. We were already using the entire parcel of land and expanding the building to the limits set by the structural engineer. The project was fixed; there was nothing else that could conceivably be added. I even told our local Chabad rabbi afterward that I didn’t understand what the Rebbe could have meant.

Ultimately, we managed to avoid the building being condemned, and thank G-d, the redevelopment was extremely successful. Despite completing the project in the depths of the 1991 recession and opening with only 20% of the building leased, we reached 100% occupancy within eight months — something virtually unheard of.

Now, one of our anchor tenants was a major regional bank that had leased approximately 20,000 square feet, with an option to expand by up to an additional 15,000 square feet. It had signed a 25-year lease, but after only two years it had grown so rapidly that even this was not enough. The bank informed us that unless it could secure additional space, it would have to relocate. This was alarming. The bank was a tonal tenant whose presence helped define the building and establish it as a “Class A” property on the commercial real estate market. The bank had to continue paying out its lease, but if its place was left empty, or even it managed to sublet it to someone else, the entire building would be affected.

Immediately to the west of our site was a parcel owned by the Taubman Company, originally intended to serve as part of a mall development contiguous to the south of our site. Taubman had repeatedly stated that it would use this parcel as a connector to the site of the Ohio State Capitol building, so we had never considered it acquirable. Then, in a completely unexpected turn of events, Taubman abandoned their plan, and we were able to purchase the parcel.

This utterly unforeseeable development allowed us to build a massive addition to our structure. With 23 stories, over 300,000 square feet, and a large parking facility, the expansion was more than twice the size of the original building. The two properties became a single integrated project, giving the bank exactly the space it needed to stay and continue its extraordinary growth.

None of this could have been predicted. When the Rebbe told us to expand the project, there was absolutely no indication that such a possibility even existed. Yet, with hindsight, everything aligned in a way that made his words not only sensible, but remarkably prescient. We ultimately sold the entire complex in 2006, and it became one of the most successful real-estate ventures ever completed in the city of Columbus. For years, I dismissed such stories as being apocryphal… but not anymore.

Mr. William Schottenstein is a real estate developer living in Columbus, Ohio. He was interviewed in August 2025.