Industrial development and acquisitions resulted in year-over-year portfolio growth for Orange Countyโs top commercial property managers.
OCโs largest property managers boosted their local rentable footprint to 188 million square feet, up from 186 million square feet a year ago, according to this weekโs BusinessโJournal list.
This yearโs list includes a mix of owner-operator property managers, such as Newport Beach-based developer Irvine Co., third-party property managers, such as CBRE Group Inc., and hybrid firms that look after their own and other companiesโ assets.
The company that saw the largest growth in its portfolio is Dallas-based Lincoln Property Co., No. 5 on this yearโs list.
The company greatly boosted its local footprint when it acquired Irvine-based property and asset management firm RiverRock Real Estate Group Inc. last July. RiverRock was No. 6 in the 2023 edition of the property managers list, with about 10 million square feet of local properties managed.
The total square footage run by Lincolnโs Newport Beach office now tops 13.7 million.
โTogether, weโve become a much bigger force,โ added RiverRock founder and Lincoln Executive VP John Combs, noting that each firmโs markets, clientele and service lines are complementary to each other.
On top of the RiverRock merger, Lincolnโa hybrid property managerโadded about 700,000 square feet organically, according to Lincoln OC Executive VP Parke Miller.
The RiverRock deal is the first of many acquisitions on the horizon for Lincoln.
โWeโre looking to merge with more firms in our space to expand our service offerings,โ Miller told the Business Journal.
National Draw
Other large firms that saw portfolio growth over the past year were third-party property manager CBRE, ranked No. 3, and Transwestern Real Estate Services, which is No. 4 on
the list.
Dallas-based CBRE increased its local portfolio 6.9% to 17.2 million square feet.
Transwestern Real Estate in Houston, which predominantly operates as a third-party property manager, upped its OC portfolio 9.7% to 14.1 million square feet.
โA number of self-managed clients are outsourcing and want to work with bigger firms,โ Combs said. โNational owners want to go with national firms.โ
Some property owners, however, are going against the grain and taking back their real estate from property managers.
Seattle-based Kidder Mathews, a third-party property manager ranked No. 16 on this yearโs list, lost business when one of its clients opted to manage their own assets.
As a result, the firmโs companywide portfolio, which spans across the West Coast, slipped 8.8% to 51 million square feet.
The company was one of few property managers that saw national portfolio shrinkage despite increased local footprint.
Kidder Mathewโs rentable square footage in OC jumped 11% to 2.5 million square feet.