Former parent company buys back Utah's Cushman & Wakefield Commerce real estate firm

The Salt Lake City office of real estate company Cushman & Wakefield Commerce has been acquired in a deal that brings its name in line with its ownership.

For the last four years or so, the commercial real-estate office was owned by NorthMarq Companies, a private holding company of the Minnesota-based Pohlad family, owner of Major League Baseball’s Twins.

NorthMarq’s holdings also included Cushman & Wakefield Commerce offices in Nevada and Washington and Cushman & Wakefield NorthMarq in Minnesota.

But now, for an undisclosed price, all of those entities are being purchased by Cushman & Wakefield’s corporate entity, raising the company employee count to 750 and increasing the amount of real estate the firm manages to almost 50 million square feet.

“We’re still going to be local,” said Trigger Reital, manager of Cushman & Wakefield’s Salt Lake City office, which has 124 employees. “But we’ll be local people with a national and international platform. … If a local company needs to do a construction project in Buenos Aires, Argentina, we will have the global platform to help with that project.”

“We’ll bring in high-level integration to help with relocation, administration of facility leases and transaction and project management,” he added, citing the benefit of having more direct ties with Cushman & Wakefield offices in large cities. “We will end up with more resources, and the ability to access resources in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, Chicago, New York or wherever.”

In a news release, Chicago-based Cushman & Wakefield called the acquisition a “formal merging of a trusted partner into our company.” It said Reital and leaders of the other three acquired offices will retain their positions.

“The industry is consolidating, with sophisticated clients needing a seamless platform irrespective of geography or service,” said NorthMarq Companies CEO Eduardo Padilla.

Reital predicted the purchase will “solidify Salt Lake City’s growth and prestige throughout the West. Our booming tech and industrial markets are bringing a lot of attention to the state. This shows how important we are to the Western U.S.”

The local office began in 1979, he said, as Commerce Properties. It became part of Cushman & Wakefield in 2004, but was sold to NorthMarq Companies in late 2013. To deal with expected growth, the company is remodeling and expanding its operations on the 16th floor of the office building at 170 S. Main.