They aren’t working out of broom closets yet at the Des Moines office of JLL, but recent growth makes the firm’s headquarters at 801 Grand Ave. a little shy of space. The recent addition of two brokers isn’t improving that situation, but it is opening a door to business growth.

Within the last month, Kate Byus, a specialist in the office market who most recently spent 10 years with R&R Realty Group, and Austin Hedstrom have joined the brokerage. Hedstrom had been with CBRE|Hubbell Commercial for three years, and at JLL he will focus on industrial properties.

Hiring folks with specialties in specific segments of the commercial real estate market is part of the new business model for JLL in Des Moines, which opened its office at 801 Grand in January 2014. Over the last four years, its rate of growth has averaged 50.4 percent.

And its territory has expanded from Des Moines and Central Iowa into five other states. Marcus Pitts, executive vice president, said that in the past, JLL’s local brokers have covered all sectors. Under the new business plan, each will focus in one area.

“Iowa has been the type of market where you could work a 5,000-square-foot office deal one day, a 20,000-square-foot industrial deal the next and a nail salon the following,” he said. “What we have heard from our clients is that they want a service level that we felt JLL can provide, and with that they want specialization.”

Pitts and Justin Lossner are the veterans in the office. Last year, Jeremy Spillman came on board and this year analyst Meredith Young is transitioning into a brokerage role. The office also has a research specialist in Eric Land and a marketing specialist in Traci Erpelding.

Pitts and Lossner will oversee the office, with Pitts working with Young in the retail sector, while also “keeping a hand” in industrial, he said. Lossner will continue his role as an office specialist. Lossner and Byus once worked together at R&R. Spillman will work on expanding JLL’s industrial practice outside of Des Moines.

“We want to push the market across Iowa by means of specialization, marketing, client reporting,” Pitts said. “Our goal is to grow in office, industrial, retail, tenant representation. From our business plan, that’s where we anticipate the growth.”

The Des Moines office has experienced organic growth in investment sales in recent years.
“We’re entrenched in a lot of deals so we know a lot of buyers for that type of product and we know a lot of sellers,” he said. Folded into all of that has been participation in between $30 million and $35 million in multifamily property transactions.

Successes have not gone unnoticed. The prestigious Certified Commercial Investment Member (CCIM) organization has recognized JLL Des Moines as top deal makers in the November/December 2017 and January/February 2018 issues of Commercial Investment Real Estate magazine.

Those deals included two industrial properties in Ankeny and Des Moines that sold for a total of $30.9 million. Also making the list was a $9.8 million sale of a 92-unit multifamily property in Ankeny. In the January/February 2018 issue of the CCIM magazine, Pitts and Lossner are recognized for a $20.5 million office acquisition and a $7.3 million lease and branding of office space. Both of those transactions were in downtown Des Moines.

And sometime this year, the office will move into larger space at 801 Grand.