Standard executes the retail rollout process for clients, including planning, developing and managing retail portfolios. The 7-year-old company has located and opened more than 1,400 new stores for retailers across the US, for clients that include the national rollout for T-Mobile USA and new store growth for Jamba Juice.

Doug Sharp, JLL international director and head of the new branch of the company, tells GlobeSt.com that Standard brings in a unique talent. "More and more retailers are looking to outsource the extension of the real estate function," Sharp says. "We see this as a great complement to project management, and will bring a service to a number of our retail clients." The current services at JLL include multi-site project management and facility management for retail stores, as well as leasing, management and advisory services for 150 retail properties.

With the acquisition, Standard's Joseph Brady, Branson Edwards and Lewis Kornberg will join JLL as managing directors, and will be based in Chicago. An additional 14 Standard employees will join JLL and operate from Atlanta, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, St. Louis and Washington, DC.

Brady tells GlobeSt.com that he and his partners have parlayed experience handling Hollywood Video's expansion in the 1990s into a successful business model, with employees who know how to roll out large numbers of stores. "Retail has been the last to subscribe to outsourcing its real estate, they've always felt they need an in-house team. However, as the talent pool shrank in the past seven years, outsourcing has become more the alternative. Now, clients are asking for an even greater suite of services, and our merger with JLL will bring that to them," Brady says.