BOSTON-“There’s no full-service net-lease brokerage company serving the Boston market.” With that statement, Jonathan Hipp, president and CEO of the Reston, VA-based Calkain Cos. Inc. unveiled to GlobeSt.com exclusively that it has opened an office here and hired a team for lift-off. Hipp explains that his goal is to fill the market gap, explaining that while there are brokerage firms in the market that handle net-lease, “no one does it as a sole focus.”

Hipp, who recently spoke at RealShare Net Lease, is also a GlobeSt.com blogger.

Manning the oars of the new venture are three industry veterans who, as Hipp explains, are known commodities in the market. In all, the executives, two of whom are new to the organization, have logged in more than $1.5 billion in real estate deals.

Hipp

Wyrwicz

Murphy

O'Mara

The team consists of:

• Stan Wyrwicz, who comes aboard as senior managing director. Wyrwicz was most recently with REF Advisory.  He also served as CFO of General Investment and Development Cos. and at Cabot, Cabot and Forbes here. 

• Managing director Rich Murphy joined the firm a year ago when Calkain purchased WestPark Advisors. With 15 years of executive-level real estate experience behind him, Murphy also did stints at the Mills Corp., Akridge Real Estate Services and Ernst & Young.

• Vice president Mike O’Mara brings two decades of commercial real estate experience to his role as VP, most recently as head of his own firm, Eastern Net Lease Advisors. For the past decade he has focused mostly on triple-net-lease investments for institutional and private investors as well as developers and financial institutions.

This will be the fifth office for Calkain which, in addition to its Reston HQ, has shops in Bethesda, MD; Wilmington, DE; and Tampa, and Hipp explains that the rollout is far from over. New York City is in his crosshairs, he says, as are the West Coast and the Midwest.

“But we chase talent, not markets,” he explains.  “We open offices when we find the right fit for us.”

The fit is right in Boston, where the name of the game will be listings. “Right now,” he states, “product is challenging in any market. “But with feet on the ground and hard work, we’ll be able to dig up listings, and in this business, listings drive transactions.”