KANSAS CITY, KS-Lee & Associates has expanded its Midwest presence with a merger with the locally based Harbinger Property Group. This office brings the number of Lee locations in the Midwest to eight, and boosts the national number to 42, with four more on the planning table.

Nathan Anderson, formerly with Cushman & Wakefield, founded Harbinger in September 2006. He runs the office with principal Patrick Meraz.

Edward Indvik, chairman of the Lee Advisory Board and vice chairman of Lee & Associates Investment Services Group, tells GlobeSt.com that another office in the Midwest makes sense in today’s market. “If you look at the statistics for Kansas City, there’s more than two million people, an industrial base of 250 million square feet and about 100 million square feet of office. There’s also 15 other brokerage firms here with five or more agents, and it’s the second-busiest rail intermodal in the nation.”

He says Lee is looking at opening two more offices in the Southeast region. “We have one approved that is being funded, and we met with the expansion committee Thursday for another one. We’re also very close on two other opportunities,” Indvik says.

Asked if the company will reach 50 offices year, Indvik was non-committal. “I picked University of Connecticut to take the Final Four this year, so that shows you how good my prediction skills are,” he says.

The national core markets seem to be returning to pre-2006-7 levels, showing that the economy is stabilizing, Indvik says. “There’s some markets, such as the Inland Empire in California, where we’re actually building speculative distribution buildings of 800,000 square feet. Demand is getting stronger throughout corporate America,” he says.