CHARLESTON, SC—Lee & Associates has opened a second full service commercial real estate office in South Carolina via a merger with Anchor Commercial Real Estate Services. Lee & Associates Charleston will give the firm a new gateway into the Southeast.

Robert Nuttall, R. Milton Thomas and Reid Davis, principals of Anchor Commercial, will lead the Charleston office. The trio boasts a combined 50 year of commercial real estate and property management experience.

“When you look at the success of Bob and his partners and the goodwill they’ve established with their clients as well as the industry, you see it’s going to be an easy cultural blend for Lee,” Edward Indvik, CEO of Lee & Associates, tells GlobeSt.com. “Knowledge of the market and client service are among our foundational principals and it’s also ingrained in Anchor’s business model.”

Lee Charleston, which becomes the firm’s 46th office nationwide, has 14 licensed commercial real estate agents. The firm will continue to represent the industrial, office, retail and investment markets as well as property management and development clients. Thomas Buist, well-known industrial broker, just joined the firm from NAI where he was a senior broker and industrial specialist. He also spent 17 years with Grubb & Ellis as a senior vice president of industrial services.

“One of the reasons we joined Lee was to recruit top flight agents,” Nuttall tells GlobeSt.com. “Joining Lee was the icing on the cake for Thomas to join us, so that was an immediate benefit of the merger. We also have a legitimate way to expand into other markets with the Lee platform.”

The new Charleston office comes on the heels of Lee office openings in New York City and Naples/Ft. Myers, FL and recent significant office openings in Atlanta, Indianapolis and Kansas City, KS. Lee’s other office in South Carolina opened in Greenville last May.