UCR, Tricor Realty Wed

UCR president and CEO Mickey Ashmore tells GlobeSt.com that he was approached by several national firms in the past two years, but the right fit wasn't there. He and Tricor's leader, David Pemberton, sealed their 17-year friendship with a business deal to deliver a focused group for building owner services.

Going forward, the plan is for Tricor's five brokers to relocate from 8235 Douglas into UCR's 21-broker office at 7001 Preston Rd. Ashmore holds his titles, with Pemberton on board as a partner and president of the newly formed landlord services division. The new hierarchy has Jean Smith as partner, executive vice president and COO and Darrell Hernandez and Stan Lotridge also partners and executive VPs. Next week, an internal promotion brings another partner, says Ashmore.

The combined firm will be in charge of roughly 10 million sf in 167 retail centers, claiming a ranking as the state's third-largest, third-party shopping center and leasing management company. Next week, another 300,000 sf of retail contracts will be signed. Ashmore isn't giving out names, but said two are urban and three are suburban properties. He says the capability is now in place to add as many as 10 centers in the next 90 days.

The execs concur the plan is to chase quality centers more so than quantity. "We are making sure we have portfolios of the right kind of properties," he stresses.

Pemberton says talks began early in the year and turned more serious about "three or four" months ago. What makes it a good marriage is that the 11-year Tricor, though a specialist for building owner services, was without a property management team. UCR's GIS mapping system and tenant representation group will round out the possibilities as the merged firm goes for a larger footprint in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex while "redefining and tweaking what we've got," Pemberton explains.

Without a doubt, UCR, a ChainLinks Retail Advisors company, gets more momentum behind its one-year-old United Commercial Property Services team led by CEO J. Scott Weaver and president Dan R. Smalley. Ashmore says UCR's leasing has "been extremely successful," but "we felt the need to strengthen our capabilities in landlord representation." Meanwhile, UCR's core management team will get back to a hard focus on tenant rep, a roster now containing 60 national and regional clients.