CBRE looks for smooth NoCo move-in

The expansion of CBRE, the world’s largest commercial real estate firm, into Northern Colorado means changes in the market, but the company’s existing presence in the region and association with established local brokers could ease the transition.

A major player in the metro area, in 2012 CBRE employed 319 people in four offices. The company did $2.7 billion in both sales and transactions in Colorado last year.

In Northern Colorado, the company has done more than $253 million in both sales and leases on over 2.5 million square feet in Larimer and Weld counties from 2011 to the present, according to company data.

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Doing business in the area since the 1990s, CBRE has had a physical address housing two valuation experts in Fort Collins since 2005, but the opening of a brokerage office in Fort Collins this fall marks the company’s first major physical foray into Northern Colorado.

Seven brokers already familiar with Northern Colorado will staff the office, using experience and connections from years spent with two of the region’s existing companies, Realtec Commercial Real Estate Services and Sperry Van Ness/The Group Commercial.

Two junior brokers and four staff members also will be part of the new office, said Mike Eyer, vice president at CBRE and formerly of Sperry Van Ness.

The fact that Los Angeles-based CBRE has hired brokers already in the market will keep the addition of a new firm from saturating the market, Eyer said.

“We’re not adding brokers to the market. They’ll just be distributed between four firms rather than three,” he said. In addition to Realtec and Sperry Van Ness, a third firm, Cassidy Turley, rounds out the largest brokerages in Northern Colorado.

Regardless of the number of companies and brokers in a market, the top 20 percent of brokers will always be able to operate, said Don Marostica, retired former owner of Loveland Commercial and a 37-year veteran of Northern Colorado commercial real estate.

The other 80 percent will come and go, Marostica said.

“It’s not easy for most brokers,” he said.

Because CBRE will compete with firms well-established in Northern Colorado, it may be difficult for them to break into a market as small as Northern Colorado, Marostica said. But hiring brokers that already have established themselves here should help, he said.

The new CBRE brokers are operating out of temporary office space in the Centerra development in Loveland, and are working on leasing office space in Fort Collins, with plans to move into an office in early November, Eyer said.

CBRE isn’t a stranger to doing business in Northern Colorado although its presence has been mostly under the radar. The company formerly was known as CB Richard Ellis, but changed its name in 2011.

The existing Fort Collins office appraises all commercial properties for local lenders, developers and property owners, according to Tom Baroch, managing director at CBRE, who oversees existing operations in Fort Collins. The office also appraises investment-grade property for out-of-town and out-of-state lenders, pension funds and real estate investment trusts.

Like many others in real estate and a variety of other industries, CBRE saw opportunity in Northern Colorado.

“Commercial (real estate) has to follow jobs,” Marostica said. With demographers predicting a population explosion in Northern Colorado in the coming decades, the area is poised for job creation and, therefore, real estate transactions.

CBRE could help with that job creation because of its national and international connections, said Marostica, who also has served as executive director of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade.

CBRE Group Inc. (NYSE: CBG) is a Fortune 500 company, and as such has connections with other large companies worldwide. These connections eventually could mean the relocation of large companies to Northern Colorado, Marostica said.

The company also houses more than brokerage services, Eyer said, offering things such as debt and equity financing and property management. CBRE also has a large research department that provides a myriad of data on different markets.

The company is able to leverage the extra services and data to find access to more people and more capital, Eyer said.

In Colorado in 2012, CBRE managed 20 million square feet of property and originated $173.6 million in loans, according to company data.