IRVINE, CA-Coldwell Banker Commercial Alliance, a national real estate services firm dedicated to serving private investors and small/mid-cap corporate users of real estate, has made two major expansions that further its stronghold in the Orange County and L.A. markets. Bridge Commercial Properties has merged with CBCA, providing growth and additional professional services to the firm's Orange County operation, and CBCA has added Los Angeles brokerage and advisory-services firm Coldwell Banker Commercial North County to its national brokerage network in L.A.

The Orange County office is under the direction of managing principal Michael Dorsey. Scott Johnstone, president and founder of Bridge, will serve as an EVP at CBCA, and five professionals from bridge will also join the CBCA Orange County team.

“We're building an office from the ground up in the image of the company that it's had for years and years,” Dorsey tells GlobeSt.com. “Scott used to work with me at CBRE, and he is very well known in the industry. He started Bridge about two-and-a-half years ago, and now we've put a deal together.”

Dorsey adds that the merger “will bring a complete office” landlord- and tenant-rep component to CBCA's Orange County office, which, as GlobeSt.com previously reported, was launched earlier this year. According to Obie Walli, CEO for CBCA, when the office was launched, “we stated that our commitment was to quickly grow the operation and establish this office as the preeminent commercial real estate firm throughout the entire market. With Scott and his team on board, we are well on our way toward achieving that goal.”

Collectively, Johnstone and his team are bringing more than 60 years of commercial real estate advisory and brokerage experience with more than $4 billion in total transactions to CBCA. Their areas of specialty throughout Orange County include corporate-tenant representation, acquisition and disposition advisory services and asset-marketing and leasing services.

Dorsey says that half of the office product in Orange County is in the Airport submarket, and acquiring five brokers and an office-administration person of Bridge's caliber “immediately establishes my office with a senor group of office brokers to work in the Airport area and provide expertise in that specialty.” Likewise, he says Bridge considered CBCA “a great platform because we're not just national but an international brand, which gives them the platform they were lacking to grow their business and be more accessible.”

With so much brokerage consolidation in the last few years, Dorsey says he is seeing more and more smaller companies merging with larger firms, and he predicts this will continue.

Regarding the addition of Coldwell Banker Commercial North County to CBCA as the firm's Los Angeles office, Dorsey says, “This gives me another network of brokers affiliated with the firm, and it's a fine group of professionals.” The office will remain at its current location at 701 N. Brand Blvd. in Glendale under the direction of its three long-standing proprietors Bill Ukropina, George Issaians and Greg Barsamian.