TCC Gets Reins to Chubb's 4M-SF Portfolio

In the best and final, the Dallas-based TCC beat Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. and Cushman & Wakefield Inc. for a first-time contract by the corporation to outsource all real estate-related needs and transactions, Richard Bernstein, TCC's area president in New York City, tells GlobeSt.com. The long-term deal includes hiring about 15 members of Chubb's real estate team and managing owned assets, he adds. He says Chubb previously divvied the transactions work between CB Richard Ellis Inc. and C&W and used the in-house staff for integrated services.

"This is a full outsourced solutions contract," says Bernstein, who worked on the Chubb account for 13 years until last fall when he left CBRE. Bernstein and Leo Paytas in TCC's Florham Park, NJ office will head up the transactions team, slated to include a sizable force from TCC area director Robert Hackett's New Jersey office.

Bernstein says it's too early to tell the impact on the part-owned and part-leased portfolio of the 113-year-old group of insurance companies. Chubb has about 1.5 million sf of office space, with some vacancy, in Warren and Whitehouse Station, NJ, and Simsbury, CT. Another 1.5 million sf is scattered across the US and one million sf lies in Europe and Asia. "This is going to be a very thorough investigation, beginning with in-place strategies and seeing how they work," Bernstein stresses. "Like most companies, it's already doing some consolidations."