A new president and COO, new divisions, plans to expand through the Southeast. Heck, before you know it, Commercial Property Professionals has a real company.

Former COO at Carter Todd Long (center) has joined CPP as president and COO, reuniting with his former Jamison Research (the commercial real estate data firm that eventually sold CoStar) colleagues Daniel Levison and Furman Wood. The hire—with Todd folding his company, Turnkey Sustainability, into the CPP family—is a big signal that the nearly 10-year-old commercial real estate firm is ready to expand into new markets.

“Over the next decade, we plan to expand under Todd's leadership because he's done it before,” Daniel says. CPP has grown from just Daniel and Furman to a broker staff of 14 and a handful of back office employees today.

What the trio envision is a network of brokerage firms under the CPP banner out of the HQ here. What they propose is essentially handling back office operations of other brokerage firms, while sharing in a picnic basket of services, including a unified marketing platform, consulting and a proprietary software program that tracks and bills commissions—a way to give their brokers a competitive edge with entrepreneurial landlords.

CPP also is about to open its co-working concept in Dunwoody—SharedSpace—at the top floor of its own corporate office building overlooking I-285. The co-working concept will be open for business as of Wednesday at Georgetown on the Perimeter.

SharedSpace is another part of the CPP platform. Furman says offering back office ops—which he calls a time-sucking endeavor—to other brokerage shops could be compelling. “We think that's a theme that will resonate with small companies. Everyone wants to be part of something that's bigger than they are,” Furman says.