PORTLAND, OR—JLL has expanded its brokerage practice in Portland with the addition of Deron Jones as senior vice president. As a market-leading landlord representative, Jones is responsible for leasing buildings totalling more than three million square feet of office space in the Portland metropolitan area, where he specializes in office and medical properties.

With rising employment and a vibrant and steadily expanding technology sector, Portland is now among the 10 most-dynamic office markets in the country, according to JLL's most recent national report on the impact of the high tech industry on office markets. This has pushed rents to historical highs in the city's CBD as well as surrounding markets and led to a market-wide vacancy of just 10% in the third quarter 2014. This, in turn, has spurred developers to push projects forward and more than three quarters of a million square feet of new office product is under construction, almost half of which is already leased.

Jones has developed long-term relationships with local and regional developers and building owners and currently represents several institutional landlords including the largest office landlord in the state. His clients also include local and national tenants in the healthcare, legal, financial, and technology industries.

“With the recent acquisition of Cresa we will continue to attract top talent to our organization in Portland, which is an indication of the city's rising prominence as a commercial real estate market as well as the lure of JLL's winning culture and global platform,” said JLL's managing director Buzz Ellis.

Recognized as one of the top brokers in the region over the last 10 years, Jones was the recipient of the “Rookie of the Year” award in his first year in the business.

He began his commercial real estate career with Cushman & Wakefield of Oregon and prior to that, Jones had a successful career as a financial advisor with Smith Barney and Fidelity Investments. He is licensed in both Oregon and Washington.