Commercial real estate company Colliers has opened an office in the Des Moines metro, which joins the firm’s more than 140 offices nationwide.

Leading the Des Moines area office is Mark Mills, who joined Colliers from R&R Real Estate in February when Colliers opened its office in the metro.

Mills is currently the only person working from the office in Clive, along with an Iowa State University intern, but he said he expects to grow the staff quickly.

“It’s a thriving marketplace,” he said. “This is an opportunity to have a local presence here and to grow this team. We’ll be careful and selective who we add, but we’ll add folks that have specialties in office, industrial, retail and multifamily.”

Although it’s Colliers’ first office in Iowa, the firm has been conducting business in the state for several years, Mills said.

“Whether it was a broker who has a license in another state [and] they have a license in Iowa to conduct business here, or a broker in another state who has a client with a need in Iowa, they would partner with somebody locally, and our managing director was looking to have boots on the ground in Iowa,” he said.

Mills said Colliers wants to serve all of Iowa from the Des Moines metro office.

Although he is essentially a one-man show for now, Colliers has a strong network of research and marketing support he can draw on.

“There’s a tremendous amount of tools and technology available on the Colliers platform,” Mills said.

He said he completed his first office deal about a month ago and has other deals in the works, including helping a client buy a building in West Des Moines for medical use. Mills declined to disclose details of those deals.

Mills and the intern currently work out of a co-working office on University Avenue in Clive, and as more brokers join the office Colliers will lease its own space in the metro.

He said he has gravitated toward the industrial sector in recent years, but has experience in both office and retail. Mills also worked primarily with landlords, although he did some tenant representation as well. He sees leading the Colliers office as the opportunity to expand the breadth of his work.

“Now I have the ability to be on both sides,” Mills said. “That was one of the main things that drew me to Colliers, aside from the national flag and all their tools and resources, it’s the ability to work on those varieties of transactions.”