WASHINGTON, DC—Chicago-based Harrison Street has made Avison Young the exclusive property manager for a 24-asset, 1.5-million square foot medical office portfolio that in based in the Washington DC area and suburban Chicago.

The assignment brings Avison Young's DC area footprint to nearly 10 million square feet, including 3.5-million square feet of medical office space. Even prior to this assignment, Avison Young managed a sizeable inventory of medical offices in the area, at two-million square feet, says Avison Young Principal Jim Kornick, whom Harrison Street first approached about transitioning the portfolio from Cushman & Wakefield.

"They knew we managed the largest portfolio of medical office in this market," Kornick, who is also a member of the firm's healthcare services and capital markets teams, told GlobeSt.com.

Harrison Street acquired the bulk of the properties -- 22 buildings in Northern Virginia, Washington D.C., Southern Maryland and Baltimore -- in 2013 from Washington REIT.  The transaction represented almost 20% of the entire stock of institutional-grade medical office properties in the area at that time. Shortly after, in 2014, it awarded C&W exclusive property management of the portfolio. The assignment also included leasing advisory services for half the portfolio, with the other half awarded to a second group.

Then in 2015, Harrison Street purchased two more medical office assets in a $28.5-million sale, which it added to this portfolio.

Anchor tenants of the portfolio include Inova Health System, Children's National Health System, LifeBridge Health and Shady Grove Fertility.

As part of the assignment, Avison Young has brought on board 35 employees that have been part of the portfolio's property management team since the WRIT days. As part of the sale, WRIT asked Harrison Street to keep the workers in place, which it has.

Avison Young also recruited C&W's Mark Johnson, who joins Avison Young as Executive Vice-President of healthcare services in the Washington DC area, and Richard Fetter, who becomes a Vice-President and General Manager of healthcare services in the DC region.

Johnson most recently was managing principal for Cushman & Wakefield's healthcare practice group. Fetter was formerly with Cushman & Wakefield in Virginia, where he served as General Manager for the Harrison Street DC portfolio.