It's said that everybody is a little Irish on St. Patrick's Day. Over 300 real estate professionals were in a celebratory mood last evening for Bisnow's St. Paddy's Day Schmooze, at Bottled Blonde in River North.
Snapped: The crew from CONLON Commercial, our presenting sponsor for the event, along with a couple of members of Chicago's legendary bagpipe band, The Shannon Rovers. CONLON owns the building Bottled Blonde calls home. CONLON is hard at work building out its new HQ at 401 W Ontario, and repositioning the Talbott Hotel, which it purchased for $51M last August.
We caught up with KTGY Architects principal Craig Pryde (left, with BKV Group associate partner Michael Cody), who said the transition to KTGY after it acquired his former firm, PPK Architects, last summer has been painless. Craig says his team was very accepting of the move and it's good to be collaborating with KTGY's offices across the country. Since the merger, Craig has been busy designing some apartment work with KTGY's Oakland office, and is doing some office renovation work in Batavia.
Pine Tree Commercial Realty VP Conor Bossy and analyst Tyler Buck had reason to smile yesterday. Conor says Pine Tree recently closed on a huge retail portfolio in Dallas for $130M. It'll be interesting to see if this portfolio's tenants embrace Pine Tree's omnichannel marketing approach.
Secured Data Services' Tony Babicz says he's been busy with clients (including major retailers like Starbucks and Target) looking to improve their cybersecurity measures. SDS is helping its clients by layering and segmenting their networks into clusters, allowing them to hide vital data deeper. This makes data breaches less common and easier to recover, if one occurs.
The Shannon Rovers announced their presence with the shrill sounds of bagpipes and military drumbeats. As they entered the room, Fidelity National Title VP Shari Haefner asked if she could insert herself into the shot. Who were we to deny her that privilege? Erin Go Bragh, Shari!
The most festive dresser at our schmooze yesterday was Desk Inc's sales team leader Jim Kelterhouse (pictured with HG Arts' Deborah Faeger and Perkins Eastman principal Michael Maurer). Jim says his numbers have never been better with the strong office lease market, and adds his beard always looks like this.
Finally, we leave you with a shot of the crowd, to show what you missed. The early bird always gets the worm and we hope to see you at our future events.
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