Faith's new gig finds her getting to the art and soul of retail.

Despite having shifted from vice chairman at retail brokerage Garrick-Aug to chairman of Prudential Douglas Elliman's retail leasing and sales division only a few months ago, Faith Hope Consolo has managed to continue bagging leases in her usual style and without pause, an impressive feat considering the expanded breadth of responsibilities she has been charged with at her new gig.

Presiding now over a team of more than 60 people who handle deals out of PDE's offices nationally, Consolo has been obliged to depart managerially from her days at Garrick-Aug where she focused mainly on leading just her own team of around six, all of whom worked as a cohesive unit in support of her deals. While she brought much of her team with her, now Consolo has become much more of a support person herself for many of the firm's brokers.

"I'm the closer on a lot of deals that the brokers here handle," she said. "'The way I help a lot of our business along is by coming in to really seal a transaction, which is one of my strengths, I feel."

This hasn't prevented her from closing a string of her own deals since taking the helm at PDE. Doing what she likes best, bringing elite and often relatively unknown fashion and luxury retailers in from abroad to the city's best and most competitive retail sections, like Fifth and Madison Avenues, Consolo has gained a reputation for her leasing creativity and ability to have her finger on the pulse of the next big thing in retail.

"Whether it's a Scandinavian furniture store or designer children's clothing, I am always trying to bring in new kinds of stores that I know can be popular and successful," Consolo said. "I am always taking trips to Europe and around the country looking for interesting ideas and stores. Those are my vacations, I go and see what's out there, it keeps reenergizing what I do and providing tons of ideas.

"I love bringing in new stores with concepts that really help make this city what it is in terms of its unique retail."

Consolo is being tapped more and more, she says, to assist developers who are constructing projects outside of her favorite jaunts--the gold crusted canyons of Madison and Fifth--to round up retailers in the hope that the right blend will spark a gradual metamorphosis of the neighborhood in which they are building.

This type of work plays into not only Consolo's penchant for arranging interesting pastiches of retailers, but also her desire to find tenants who aren't simply the latest fashionistas or purveyors of perfumes and handbags.

One such deal of which she was particularly proud for its substance over style was the 30K s/f of space she leased in the glass sheathed base of the IBM building to part of the Dahesh Museum, one of the biggest collectors of 19th and early 20th century European art. Visible from Consolo's office on Madison Avenue, the museum has had a palpably positive effect on the neighborhood, which is already a prime stretch in midtown.

Strangely enough, Consolo wondered if she would be doing many deals at all when she moved to PDE.

"Sometimes, when you change firms, especially when you go from a smaller firm to a bigger firm, your clients wonder if you're going to be able to dedicate the same amount of time to them that they're used to," Consolo said. "But I really lucked out, practically all of my clients stuck with me for the move."

Consolo was nervous enough about the transition however that she spent the weekend sandwiched between her Friday finish at Garrick-Aug and Monday start at PDE in the latter's offices working with her staff to ensure all their deals carried over.

Over three months later, she says they still haven't stopped working and have closed roughly a deal a week. Her fast pace has helped her settle into her lofty position, but the support and warmth of PDE president and CEO Dottie Herman has also eased Consolo's transition into her more demanding role as manager and broker.

"The day I got to my desk here I found this," said Consolo brandishing a note written by Herman that welcomed her to the PDE family.

"I lost my parents very early in my life so being part of a family here is very important to me. Dottie is such a rare person, she's among the most energetic, hardworking and brilliant people I've ever met, but she's also got a heart of gold, she's such a warm person. It's great for me to have a peer like her, we've bonded very quickly."