| Canada’s largest independent commercial RE firm Avison Young opened its first two California offices in the LA area last year, but it didn’t stop there. Yesterday we chatted with Nick Slonek, principal/ managing director of the new San Francisco office. He and a handful of brokers he brought over from Cornish & Carey are settling into their new 12.5k SF office at 601 California St. (The office doesn't come with daily birthday cake.) He has additional recruiting announcements of senior brokers up his sleeve—already, several have indicated interest in expanding the office. Nick tells us they’ll initially focus on office product and eventually add business lines to include retail, apartments, and industrial. He anticipates the San Francisco office will serve as the NorCal HQ as they expand into Silicon Valley/Palo Alto, the East Bay, and Sacramento: “From there, we’ll look at doing Seattle and Portland, so we have ambitious plans.” |
| According to Nick, Avison Young brings a progressive perspective and an entrepreneurial platform. One of the big differentiations is that most of the workforce with seniority will be principals—the buck stops there, “rather than a Wall Street-backed firm. There’s no room to fail when you’re a principal.” Nick, most recently a principal and SVP with Cornish & Carey, started his career in 1988 at boutique firm Nelson Peterson—located in same space as Avison Young so he’s come full circle. After that, he went to Coldwell Banker (now CBRE) and was there for 16 years. Nick was among a group who left to start Cornish & Carey’s downtown office. The father of four girls (18 months to 12 years) grew up in Oakland and played varsity water polo at Berkeley. But long ago he traded in his Speedo for a corkscrew, as president of the California Vintage Wine Society. |
NEW TEAM IN TOWN
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