Colliers Team Heads To Transwestern

Chase tells GlobeSt.com that the three brokers officially will become part of Transwestern on May 8, a transition that comes a little more than a year after Transwestern tapped George H. Garfield Jr., a former Disney and Vivendi Universal real estate executive, to serve as West Region president to boost Transwestern's presence on the West Coast."Transwestern is creating a national multifamily platform and is already well established on the East Coast and with a Dallas office," says Chase, who explains that he, Palmer, Quintana and eight production and administrative members of the Colliers team will all be moving over to Transwestern. The team will be based in West Los Angeles. "Transwestern is building a very high-capability team of experienced apartment brokers, so that appealed to us," Chase says. He says the team had "a positive experience" at Colliers Seeley International, which was known for years as the Seeley Co. before joining the Colliers organization. Chase tells GlobeSt.com that another part of the appeal of Transwestern was that it also has development and management capabilities and an investment company with $5 billion in assets that buys and sells around the country on behalf of investors. "This meant to us that we would be able to assist them directly in their efforts, and that was appealing too," he says.Chase, Palmer and Quintana have worked on multifamily and mixed-use transactions together since 2000, closing more than $875 million in transactions in 2004 and more than $300 million in the first quarter of 2005. Among the local transactions that they closed were the sale by Canyon-Johnson Urban Fund and the Bond Cos. of the Sunset+Vine urban mixed-use development to BlackRock Realty for $165 million and the purchase by the Archstone-Smith REIT of Englewood, CO of the partially constructed Del Mar Station in Pasadena from Urban Partners and Oaktree Capital Management for $134 million. The Del Mar deal was unusual in that it was one of the first times such a project has traded hands in mid-stream, Palmer told GlobeSt.com at the time of the deal.

In a deal the three brokered that set one of the top prices per unit in the Inland Empire, GMH Capital Partners of Newtown Square, PA acquired the 212-unit GrandMarc at University Village apartment complex from Phoenix Property Co. of Dallas for $55 million. Chase said that the property commanded $260,000 per unit for a variety of reasons that included its unique range of amenities, the unusually high rents that it generates, its location near the 400,000-sf University Village retail/entertainment center and the overall quality of the asset, which was built in 2001.When Transwestern began its push to grow in the West, it cited the region as one of the fastest growing and largest economies in the country. The company specializes in landlord representation for leasing, property and facility management, tenant representation, corporate advisory services, investment and finance, healthcare advisory, development, and research for a broad range of property types including office, industrial, retail and multifamily.