CAMP HILL, PA—California-based Lee & Associates has opened the firm's first office in Pennsylvania in Camp Hill, near Harrisburg.

The office is being led by Brian Knowles, CCIM, MCR, Jack Shepley, SIOR, and John Van Buskirk, SIOR. The three brokers spoke exclusively to GlobeSt.com about the new office.

Their client roster includes leading developers, institutional investors, and corporations in the region, total over 75 years of collective commercial real estate experience. In addition, the three managing partners bring strong track records in landlord agency, tenant representation, investment sales, and complex transaction work across the Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Southern New Jersey submarkets.  

“We have a very deep well of industrial and land experience,” Knowles tells GlobeSt.com exclusively. “Our experience in the industrial sector really runs through Central Pennsylvania, which is the largest industrial submarket, all the way through to Philadelphia, Delaware and South Jersey. That's why it was really important to be here in Camp Hill initially.”

One of the office's first projects is a GoodmanBirtcher development of a two million square foot class A industrial property on a major highway interchange near Harrisburg, the firm says.

The firm also introduced Matrix Development to the United Business Park in Shippensburg, PA, Van Buskirk says. “They are now under contract and hope to execute a purchase of sites capable of supporting a 1.5 million square foot building and an 800,000 square foot building, and with luck, we'll hope to represent them in the leasing should that project transact,” he says.

“Eastern Pennsylvania has always been an important link with the development of our overall strategy in national expansion, and this office provides us with another key presence in the East,” says Jeffrey Rinkov, CEO of Lee & Associates.

The firm says an additional office is expected to be added shortly in suburban Philadelphia as new brokers are added.

“Our mandate is to build up the Philadelphia marketplace,” Van Buskirk says. “We just think the appropriate first step is to office in Central Pennsylvania. Our mandate is to build out across the 'food groups,' meaning office, commercial, multifamily, and investment. Opening that office in suburban Philadelphia is a very high priority for us in 2015.”

For the three managing partners, the decision to join Lee & Associates was based on the opportunity to invest in a rapidly growing brand.

“We are confident the firm's culture, platform, commitment to research excellence, and unique ownership opportunities will resonate with industrial, office, retail and commercial brokers throughout the market,” Knowles says. “Our goal is to form a full service commercial real estate firm that competes as a Tier 1 player in Eastern PA across all the asset classes.”