Tom Helberg

Toledo attorney Tom Helberg is principal of Bellevue Investors Company, a real estate development company co-founded by his father. While he clearly enjoys what he does, the Sylvania native didn‘t initially plan on a career in either law or real estate. Both of Helberg’s parents were Holocaust survivors who immigrated to America after World War II. His father, Sam, was a barber by trade. In 1959 Sam and two of his customers, a dentist and a construction professional, pooled their resources to become partners and form Bellevue Investors. When Tom Helberg graduated from Northview High School in 1977, he attended college at the University of Southern California (USC), looking at the possibility of a career in the film industry. While attending USC he met his wife and moved back to Ohio in order to attend law school. The plan was to return to California after obtaining his law degree, but 27 years later he remains a Toledoan. According to Helberg, the local real estate market was strong when he graduated from law school, and he chose that field over the film industry. “It was my choice; I think you kind of find your personality and it was a matter of needing something structured to go to every day,” he stated. Near the time Helberg graduated law school and decided to get into real estate, one of his father’s original partners was in the process of leaving the business. Helberg joined the firm with his father and the other partner, George Kuehnl. The year was 1984. “We each kind of had our niche,” Helberg explained. “George oversaw anything related to construction, my father was the numbers man, and I handled the legal end and management. My father was pretty street savvy; until he passed all the numbers were written down in longhand.” Helberg added that, by the time he joined the company, the others were inching towards retirement, spending more and more time away from the business, which gave him a lot of responsibility early on. He stated, “To my good fortune, although it didn’t appear that way at the time, they were spending more time each year in Florida, since they both had places down there. That forced me to get outside of what I did and learn some of what they did. But there was no better way to learn. I’m still learning. You don‘t have to be an expert at everything, and there are people you can tap into.” He explained that, while all three of them had different personalities, they were all able to get along, something that was more important in the age before emails and text messaging. “You would sit down a lot more face to face.” Helberg spent about 20 years working with his father and Kuehnl. “The first ten years I didn’t say a lot. The second ten years, with their support, I started to do things independent of them,” he explained. Helberg’s father passed away in 2003, and Kuehnl no longer worked full time at the time of his death in November 2008. “They both loved what he did, and would come in until the very end." The thing about this business is that things can still happen even if you’re not sitting at your desk. So they were able to be semi-plus retired yet they still kept their hands on the big picture,” Helberg stated. Although Helberg explained that there isn’t an exact moment where he took over the company, his partners simply kept spending more and more time away from the office, and his role eventually evolved into being the principal of the company. Helberg still partners with several other people on individual projects. “I will partner with other folks that bring something to the table,” he stated. “For a lot of people it allows them to be involved in this industry without having to be involved in the day to day. They get full financial reports every month.”According to Helberg, one of the things he has learned is how to evaluate situations in a certain way and not be deterred from that formula. Though he added that experience and instinct play an important role in his decision-making. He pointed out that his father didn’t have much formal education but was still a shrewd businessman, with a good instinct. “After a while, a lot of it is instinct. I see and look at stuff (on the Internet) and you can get pretty close to getting a good feel, but I would never buy anything until I can walk on it and touch it,” he stated. One of his recent projects involved an office building in the Country Square complex on Monroe Street in Sylvania. The building was owned by a dentist and made news a couple of years ago when it was seriously damaged by fire. The owner of the building told Helberg that he wanted to focus on his dental practice, but dealing with the building was consuming much of his time. So Bellevue Investors stepped in and rebuilt it. Today the main floor is fully occupied by dentists Dr. Rodney Paladino and Dr. Marianna Baker (at two separate practices); Phoenix Services; attorney John H. Manore, III; and massage therapist Marlene Damico.

• Languages
  English
• Markets
  Detroit, Phoenix, Toledo
• Property Types
  Land, Office, Retail
• Awards
  Board MemberState Bank, Defiance, OH Board of Sylvania Township Board of Zoning Appeal DRC Committee Sincuidados Subdivision Scottsdale, Az Past Board Member Toledo Hospital Foundation, Honorary Past Chair of NW Ohio Alzheimer’s Walk
• Company Website
  Visit Site
• Education
  JD University of Toledo, BA University of Southern California, Cum Laude.