Cresa Embarking on 'Aggressive' But 'Thoughtful' Expansion

BOSTON—International tenant-only brokerage firm Cresa, which recently announced changes in its executive leadership, says it is embarking on a two-pronged growth path that will increase its employee base and strengthen as well as enhance the services it provides it clients.

In the first of a two part series covering Globest.com's exclusive interview with Cresa CEO Richard Rhodes, Matthew Feeney, chairman, and COO Judi Hilton, the executives detailed the company's short-term intentions to open offices in Tampa as well as being actively engaged in expanding into other domestic locations in San Jose, Portland and Seattle. The company is also looking to open eight offices in Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand this spring.

In this final installment, Feeney relates that in addition to its workforce, which now stands at approximately 1,000 worldwide, the company also intends to grow its support services business.

“Our goals over the next five years is to continue to bolster those supportive services for the client,” Feeney says. “We have two pronged growth both physically and supportive growth. Those are the goals.”

Both Feeney and Rhodes characterized their planned expansion as “aggressive” as well as “thoughtful.” They also stressed that Cresa is now the only major tenant-only brokerage firm worldwide.

“I don't think we are getting too far ahead of our skis,” Rhodes says of its growth initiative. “I think we know exactly what we want to do. We have a game plan and we are following it.”

Feeney adds, “We are a privately-held, debt-free organization so we can do this growth in a fashion that makes sense for us and our client base and not to satisfy an investment community.”

In at least the short term both in the US and globally, Cresa believes it is the biggest and most influential player in the tenant-only commercial brokerage market and plans to capitalize on that factoid.

While they expect some competition in the future, Rhodes says, “We don't see anyone in our rearview mirror right now that is anywhere close to as evolved or as advanced as Cresa is. Our biggest two competitors the past five or six years was Staubach, which got acquired by JLL and the other was Studley, which was acquired by the full service firm Savills. So they are going away faster than they are coming let's put it that way.”