The operations of 360 Commercial Partners, an Irvine-based boutique commercial real estate brokerage launched in 2009, are being folded into the local office of Jones Lang LaSalle.
The move combines 360 Commercial’s 12-person practice and Chicago-based Jones Lang LaSalle’s Irvine office, which has 25 brokers.
The deal was more than a year in the making and closed last week on undisclosed terms.
The acquisition represents the latest sign of growth for the local operations of Jones Lang LaSalle, one of the country’s largest real estate services companies. Jones Lang LaSalle has been adding brokers and new practice lines to its Irvine office during the past year.
The company expects the deal with 360 Commercial to provide its Orange County office a sizable boost in business for its industrial practice, as well as in the sale and leasing of small- and midsize office buildings, among other areas.
360 Commercial’s founder and president, Louis Tomaselli, has long been one of the top industrial brokers in the region. He will lead the merged firms’ Orange County industrial practice.
Jeff Ingham, senior managing director of Jones Lang LaSalle’s Irvine office, will lead the office and research and development practices for the region.
The deal “was driven by client demand for broader and deeper services, as well as the anticipated growth of Orange County,” said Peter Belisle, the southwest market director of Jones Lang LaSalle, who is based in the company’s Los Angeles office.
“There’s still a lot of runway left here,” Belisle said.
Sale, Lease Work
Jones Lang LaSalle reported working on about $537 million worth of sales and leases here last year, making it Orange County’s ninth-largest commercial real estate brokerage, according to Business Journal data.
The company’s tenant-representation business has been involved in some of OC’s largest leases over the past two years. It has worked with companies such as Alcon Laboratories Inc., PacifiCare Health Systems Inc. and Bank of America, which last year signed a 637,000-square-foot lease in Brea, OC’s largest lease of 2011.
The company “has historically been a leader in the tenant-rep world. The focus of the last two years has been to grow the industrial and agency business,” Ingham said.
“This helps complete the platform,” Ingham said.
Jones Lang LaSalle now counts more than 140 employees in Orange County, including property management, brokerage and other staff.
Tomaselli said he expects the deal will help provide his company’s existing clients with access to more national and international connections, as well as a wider range of institutional buyers. The two companies share a “client-specific” model of business, he said.
“When I started in 2009, there was a gunslinger mentality (among brokerages) that I wanted to change,” Tomaselli said.
The two companies have “a shared vision to be the chosen real estate expert and strategic advisors to the leading owners, occupiers and investors” in and around OC, he said.
Notable buildings listed with 360 Commercial include the former Irvine manufacturing center for St. John Knits International Inc., as well as several high-profile offices that are up for sale along Von Karman Avenue in Newport Beach.
The 360 Commercial brand will be phased out in a few months, and the companies’ combined OC operations will consolidate in a new location by year’s end, officials said.
The Jones Lang LaSalle-360 Commercial deal is the latest shake-up in Orange County’s brokerage community.
In April, the assets of Santa Ana-based Grubb & Ellis Co., OC’s third largest brokerage in 2011, were sold to New York-based BGC Partners Inc.
In January, Princeton, N.J.-based NAI Global, OC’s eighth-largest brokerage in 2011, was bought by Irving, Texas-based C-III Capital Partners LLC.
