Does Working in Commercial Development = Leasing

No, totally depends on the developer. The larger the shop, the more discernible the individual silos. Companies like Trammel, Related, etc. have a specific leasing group responsible for that work, as do smaller regional companies. The smaller developers is usually where the boundaries are fuzzy, where you may indeed have the development group also working actively on leasing.

Leasing is a super critical role in development, more so than in investment mngt (well, until a big vacancy comes up). Our firm has people on each development team that focus on leasing, they work with the brokers, work with marketing on strategy, and negotiate the deals.

This is considered an advanced role as it is negotiating and deal making, and only more senior people (like Director and above) get that type of assignment. This isn't to say they do it 100% of the time, but landing a big tenant in an office development makes you a hero. If not much to lease, then these people focus on land acquisitions (as you can imagine, there is an inverse relationship in demand there).

Depends on the firm.

Most firms I know have a dedicated leasing team, but the development team is responsible for the overall leasing strategy (i.e. what kind of tenant mix do we want for the property, who will our anchors be, etc.)

The senior dev guys might take responsibility for negotiating with the anchors and any specific tenants they want (let's say a developer wants to bring the first Ikea to a region), then the leasing team will work on filling the in-line units.

Wanted to follow up on this.  My role hasn't been working on leasing strategy or negotiating leases, its cold calling tenants.  I'm being told that's what development is from my higher ups.

My 2c: from an LP's perspective, the developer's purpose is to de-risk the project/deal from ideation through completion. Each step in de-risking solidifies/increases value. leasing is probably the single most value-additive step in the entire lifecycle of a property. Being awesome at leasing and having great prospective tenant relationships/network can make up for a lot of weaknesses. If I had to pick only 1 skill in which I wanted my dev partner to excel, it would be leasing. (Not that the rest aren't obviously important. Sourcing deals is a big one too. Just trying to emphasize how important this one is)

I was networking with a local retail developer back in august. I’m an acquisitions person and this quote may assist: “why do acquisitions, anyone can underwrite a building. The important thing is asset management and/or leasing. Go get a job doing that.” The thing is - he’s 100% correct. However, you don’t need to enjoy it or want to do it. Some developers, as people have alluded to, you do leasing, some you won’t. If you want to escape the leasing aspect of the job, try going to a bigger player where there is a dedicated leasing team. On top of that, cold calling honestly sounds no fun. I can see why you may not enjoy it. 

Yeah, that sounds pretty normal, especially on the office and retail side.

From what I’ve seen, development and leasing can overlap a lot because the project only works if tenants actually want the space. Even if your title is on the development side, you still end up dealing with tenant demand, brokers, LOIs, space layouts, rents, and what the market will actually absorb.

That said, 50% leasing does sound like a lot if you were expecting a more pure development role. If you want less broker interaction, you may want to look more at acquisitions, asset management, construction/project management, or development roles at shops where leasing is handled by a separate in-house team or third-party broker.