NEW YORK CITY-Following the high-profile move of ArthurMirante from Cushman & Wakefield tolead Avison Young’s New York City office, theCanadian-based commercial estate services company is aggressivelyexpanding into the Manhattan market, making eight new hireseffective immediately, GlobeSt.com has learned. The company hastapped Grubb & Ellis veterans VincentCarrega, Neil C. Helman, JonEpstein and Charles B. Kingsley asprincipals to lead the firm’s investment sales division.

The company has also hired Michael Berk,Steve Rooney, Jason Mazin andMiriam Halpert—also from Grubb—to work in thefirm’s new Manhattan office. Berk and Rooney will serve asfinancial analysts; Mazin will take the reigns as marketingcoordinator; and Halpert will join as an investment salesbroker.

The moves, Helman tells GlobeSt.com, were in the works as thenews about Mirante made waves throughout the New York real estatecommunity. “I can certainly say that Arthur coming on boardcertainly made our decision,” he says. We’ve realized that it wasclearly that right decision to make. He’s so well respected in theindustry, and obviously both Arthur and our group had to be havingconversations pretty much simultaneously based on theannouncements. It only solidified our choice of having Avison Youngas the right platform to go to.”