Greg May is switching sides after leading leasing operations for two of Orange County’s largest office landlords.
May, one of the bigger names in commercial real estate leasing locally (you’ve probably seen his name on signs), just signed on as a senior vice president at Grubb & Ellis Co.’s Newport Beach office.
He’ll be handling project leasing and tenant representation for Grubb & Ellis.
It’s a slightly different role for May, who had headed OC leasing operations for Los Angeles-based Maguire Properties Inc. and for Houston-based Transwestern Commercial Services in Irvine.
The decision to leave Maguire came amid historically low vacancy rates, which have created minimal “commission-able events” for brokers at buildings owned by the company, May said.
May said he now has a larger field to play in.
There’s a big difference between leasing space for a landlord and working at a brokerage, he said. But in the end, “a deal is a deal,” May said.
At Grubb, May said he’s looking to forward to working on smaller deals and office tower leasing.
“Instead of representing just a few large office projects, I get to focus my 20 years of experience where I can serve my clients best,” he said.
It’s more common for brokers to move to the landlord side of business, said Steven Case, senior vice president of leasing for The Irvine Company.
Case joined the county’s largest landlord a year and half ago, after a long career at CB Richard Ellis Group Inc.
“Moving from the ownership side of business to the brokerage side gives (May) a tremendous advantage and knowledge that a typical broker doesn’t have,” Case said.
Speaking of the Irvine Co.
William “Bill” Halford has landed after leaving as head of the Irvine Co.’s office division in February.
He’s now chief executive and president of Bixby Land Co. He has ties to the Bixby family, one of the original big landowners in what now is OC.
For weeks, speculation was ripe about where Halford would end up. The rumor that got the most attention was that Halford could land a top position at Maguire Properties.
Maguire Properties and Halford seem to have a sense of humor about the job that never was.
The press release announcing Halford’s hire at Bixby Land included a supportive quote from Robert F. Maguire III, chief executive for Maguire Properties.
Halford’s “reputation in commercial real estate is one that will certainly make people expect to see action at Bixby Land,” Maguire said.
Halford replaces Terrance “Terry” Dickens at Bixby, who’s retiring after nine years. He’s also moving the industrial development company’s headquarters from Long Beach to Newport Beach, near his old office.
Bixby counts about 50 industrial properties in its Southern California portfolio, totaling about 3 million square feet.
Expect more investments. Halford plans to use joint ventures, debt and other ways to help the company’s portfolio grow much quicker.
The company plans to stick with developing industrial and flex-tech buildings and will focus on projects within an hour’s plane ride from OC, Halford said.
Voit Nabs Industrial Team
The Anaheim office of Voit Commercial Brokerage LP, part of Woodland Hills-based Voit Cos., added some big names to its industrial team.
The company just hired senior vice presidents Luke McDaniel and Cameron Driscoll, a brokerage team previously with Cushman & Wakefield Inc.’s Irvine office. The two have completed more than 500 lease and sale deals, totaling more than 9 million square feet.
McDaniel and Driscoll focus on the Mid-Counties industrial market, including Santa Fe Springs, Buena Park, Cerritos, Downey, La Mirada, Norwalk and La Palma.
In Comes Tishman Speyer
In January, I wrote about the pending sale of two Newport Beach office towers that are home to chipmakers Conexant Systems Inc. and spinoff Mindspeed Technologies Inc.
The story changed a bit since then.
The two 10-story buildings, which total 373,000 square feet, sold as expected. But a last minute hitch brought in a different owner than I initially reported.
Tishman Speyer Properties LP of New York ended up buying the buildings for $135 million, or about $368 per square foot.
It’s the first buy in OC for Tishman Speyer, which owns buildings in Los Angeles. The company has a portfolio of glamorous offices,its two biggest-name holdings are New York’s Chrysler Building and Rockefeller Center.
KBS Realty Advisors LLC of Newport Beach sold the buildings, about a year after buying them for $110 million. Grubb & Ellis brokered the deal.
I earlier wrote that local real estate investor and coin dealer John Saunders and his Core Realty Holdings LLC was in escrow to buy the two towers at 4000 MacArthur Blvd. The deal fell through after some last-minute attempts at renegotiations, brokers said.
