DENVER—Lee & Associates has opened an office in Denver. The office, which is the firm's 51^st office, will be located at 1610 Wynkoop St., Suite 450, and will be headed by real estate veteran John R. Bitzer as managing broker. JR Bitzer and Ron Webert, both principals, will comprise the primary team.

John Bitzer has more than 30 years of commercial real estate experience and founded one of Denver's premier brokerage firms, Bitzer Real Estate Partners, in 1995. Before that, he had spent 17 years with Denver's regional firm Fuller and Co., now Cassidy Turley, where he served as a principal, director and managing broker.

JR Bitzer, who has been with BREP since 1999, is an office specialist whose primary focus is tenant representation. He has experience with both local and national clients, with special attention paid to helping companies plan and execute real estate strategies specifically designed to meet both their operational and financial objectives as well as improve the efficiency and quality of their workspace.

Ron Webert, an industrial specialist, joined BREP in 2007 after spending 10 years with Grubb & Ellis, where he represented local and national clients. In 2012, he brokered the second-largest industrial sale in the market.

The opening of the Denver office comes on the heels of Lee's Cleveland office opening. It signals an important and strategic step in the firm's regional and national office-expansion strategy, which executives tell GlobeSt.com has a two-pronged approach.

“We want to be in major metropolitan areas where we don't have an office, like Denver,” Jeff Rinkov, the company's CEO, tells GlobeSt.com. “But it's also the quality of the sponsor group involved. We focus on the talent level and quality of the promoter or sponsor group and seek those who are looking to join Lee for our national branded platform in addition to seeking brokers to service clients throughout the country.”

Rinkov says Lee has wanted to be in Denver for a long time. “Denver is an ideal market for Lee because it is a link between our Midwest, Southwest, East Coast and Southeast offices. It's geographically important to our Southern and Central California offices, too. We're furthering the message to our clients that we are a national firm in multiple markets.”

He adds that there are 16 market territories where the firm doesn't have offices and would like to establish them. “You're likely to see us have additional announcements in the next quarter in larger and smaller markets.”

Lee was waiting for the right time and the right group to start the venture, and Rinkov says now is the perfect time. “It's a good exhibition of Lee's ability to identify the best talent in the market and to make a match between our model and the way we're able to serve clients and attract top talent. This group has an outstanding reputation, so it's a good marriage of time and talent.”

The Bitzer-led team is being encouraged to do exactly what they've been doing, Rinkov says, while Lee provides them with a broader platform to expand on it. “They've set off a great standard of excellence in that market.”

John Bitzer tells GlobeSt.com, “Branding is very important to us as opposed to being another boutique operation. The Lee name is well-known in Denver because of our geographical location to Southern California and Phoenix. Some of their largest transactions were done in Denver, so people are very much aware of the firm, which will very much help us to recruit and build this office. The timing is going to be perfect. The main reason we're excited about joining Lee is it will help our recruiting because of the model. It's the largest broker-owned commercial real estate entity in the free world.”