JLL is beefing up its capital markets team in New York, hiring broker Marion Jones away from Ackman-Ziff.

Jones is joining the company as a managing director and will work alongside New York office co-Head Bob Knakal and Senior Managing Director Andrew Scandalios, JLL announced in a release.

“Marion’s extraordinary experience across a broad range of capital markets services positions her to provide insight and guidance as our clients negotiate a shifting market,” Scandalios said in a statement.

Jones joined Ackman-Ziff in 2015 and served as a managing director at the company. She had worked as a director of investment sales at Eastern Consolidated, a brokerage firm that closed its doors in 2018. She began her career at CBRE.

In her 17 years as a broker, she has closed $9B in investment sales and capital markets transactions, according to JLL. Some of her notable deals include arranging Urban American Management’s $236M sale of its 1,400-unit apartment portfolio to Peter Rebenwurzel and David Malek in 2015. She also brokered Lightstone Group’s purchase of two South Bronx land parcels at 399 and 255 Exterior St. for $59M in 2019.

Jones, who serves as the chair of the Women’s Leadership Initiative at the Urban Land Institute, said she believes the environment right now provides a "unique opportunity to develop new and creative strategies to achieve client objectives.”

New York City investment sales have dropped significantly in the last year, with just 78 sales closed in New York City between January and March, a 49% drop-off year-over-year. The total dollar volume of investment sales across the city was under $1.4B in the first three months of the year, per Avison Young, which was 41% below the average of the previous three quarters.