Industrial Brokerage Team Moves Shingle

(Read more on the industrial market.)

HAYWARD, CA-Five industrial brokers have left the Oakland office of BT Commercial to open Cornish 7 Carey Commercial’s first office in Hayward. The new office, which opened last week at 22351 City Center Dr., is being managed by Joe Fabian, who last switched affiliation 11 years ago. The rest of the team includes senior vice presidents Steve Kapp, Paul Mueller and Paul Beckwith and founding member Mike Spiro.

Four of the five brokers were partners with BT Commercial. Fabian tells GlobeSt.com the goal was to be closer to the south I-880 commercial industrial market, to combine resources and to generate more revenue. There’s not a huge difference in the commission splits between the two houses. The upside, he says, will come with the ability to generate more business.

“We were a long distance from our primary market so we tended to work it only on an as-needed basis; having an office in Hayward allows us to be on the Peninsula, talking to tenants every day,” Fabian says. “All of us thought we could increase the amount of business we do by being closer to clients and new business.”

The group’s existing client base is already substantial. On the landlord side, clients include UBS Realty Advisors, the Rreef Funds, AMB Property Co., The Principal Financial Group, Harvest Properties, Biomed Realty Trust, Invesco, Legacy Partners and Gluckstein Family Trust. On the tenant side, clients include Sconza Candy Co., Animal Supply Logistics, Nabisco Foods, Fluoresco Lighting & Signs, Dow Corning, Cell Genesys, Socket Communications, Convergys, Sysco Foods, Hitachi, General Foundry, The Annex, Oakland Container and Tai Lan.

From its primary market on the Peninsula, Fabian says the team’s new office is also central to the Fremont/Newark, Tri-Valley and Oakland/San Leandro markets. The team’s goal for 2008 is to broker between 30 and 50 deals and generate revenue of between $3.5 and $4 million. In addition, Fabian says over time he will look to grow the office to between 10 and 15 brokers to maximize potential.

Fabian, Kapp, Mueller and Beckwith each bring between 12 and 21 years of experience with them. Mueller and Beckwith specialize in owner-occupied properties in the Hayward-Union City-San Leandro area while Kapp and Spiro bring development and architectural skills to their brokerage work in the Fremont and Newark markets and Fabian works the high-cube warehouse-distribution market up and down the I-880 corridor.

Cornish & Carey and BT Commercial both have about eight offices in the Bay Area. C&C is affiliated with Oncor International. BT Commercial is affiliated with NAI Global. BT Commercial CEO Mike Kamm could not be reached Monday for comment.

Last month, NAI BT benefitted from a group of five brokers switching houses. Steven B. Leonard, Matthew J. Brown, Stephen C. Easely, Trevor M. Buck, and Brian A. Foster, all from Meridian Commercial, joined the San Rafael (North Bay) office of BT Commercial. The group brought with it listings for some of the largest office, industrial and flex projects in Marin and Sonoma counties, including the 1.1 million-sf Redwood Business Center, the 690,000-sf RNM Properties campus, the 476,000-sf Marin Commons project, the 410,000-sf Lakepoint Business Park and the 400,000-sf Lakeville Business Park.