JLL Expands Food & Beverage Team, Colliers Hires Multifamily Valuation Leader, Rockefeller Group Lures Hines Executive in Texas

JLL hired Brian Adams, who specializes in advising food and beverage clients, as senior vice president in its retail division in Dallas. Adams will serve JLL’s food and beverage advisory team led by Naveen Jaggi, president of JLL’s retail advisory services. The team also includes Emily Durham and Rachael Keener, who lead the JLL efforts in Houston, and Austin McWilliams, who leads them in Austin, Texas. Before Adams joined JLL, he served as a partner at Retail Street Advisors for nearly seven years. Prior to that, he served as senior vice president of hospitality at bigInk Real Estate and Auction Services. During his time in the industry Adams has represented several restaurateurs including Michelin Star winners and James Beard Foundation Award semi-finalists, as well as retailers, hoteliers and real estate developers.

JLL said the addition of Adams is part of its commitment to expand the food and beverage advisory team and to strengthen its presence in Texas. “We have been focused on growing our retail operations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and we’ve recognized that the food and beverage sector presents a great opportunity for us to do just that,” Jaggi said in a statement.

Colliers has recruited Aimee Morgan Nicotra as a managing director for the South-Central region, where she will lead the multifamily team. In her new role, Nicotra, a 14-year veteran of commercial real estate, will work to grow Colliers’ South-Central multifamily team in conjunction with the brokerage’s growing national multifamily valuation practice. Before Nicotra joined Colliers, she served as managing director of JLL’s U.S. multifamily valuation team, where she helped build the business centered on strategic operational and business development efforts. She started her commercial real estate career at CBRE, where she served as a regional multifamily lead for client care and other roles. The addition of Nicotra will allow Colliers to expand the platform, said Jeff Shouse, executive vice president, Western U.S. “The multifamily sector continues to be active as economic trends affect shifts in vacancy rates, rent growth, and overall asset performance,” Shouse said in a statement.

Rockefeller Group hired Philip Croker to lead the development firm’s expansion into Texas as a senior managing director and head of its new Southwest region. Croker, based in Houston, will oversee Rockefeller’s real estate acquisitions, new developments and operations in Texas and Arizona and across the region. Texas is a new market for Rockefeller, which has been active in Arizona for 15 years. Croker previously served as a senior managing director at Hines, where he was responsible for the analysis and execution of acquisitions and new development projects in Houston, Austin, and San Antonio. During his nearly 19 years at Hines, Croker played a role in the development of more than 5 million square feet of office space including 609 Main at Texas and Texas Tower in Houston and T3 Eastside in Austin, Texas. “Texas continues to see strong demographic and corporate growth in all of the major cities, and those trends point towards ongoing opportunities in all sectors of commercial real estate, especially industrial and residential, and is a strong fit for us as we continue to expand our U.S. platform,” said Tom Weeks, Rockefeller executive vice president and head of development.

Commercial real estate investment services firm Matthews tapped Caleb Frizzell as a first vice president to lead the charge into the Birmingham, Alabama, market. He specializes in multifamily investment sales across the Birmingham area and surrounding markets. Frizzell, who most recently served as a vice president at Marcus & Millichap, started his career at Berkadia and has been involved in the sale of over 10,000 apartment units and transactions with an aggregate value of $1.8 billion during his career.

The Matthews Birmingham office, temporarily located at 2100 Corporate Drive, is the third new market the Nashville-based brokerage has entered recently, having expanded to Houston and Washington, D.C., early this fall. Matthew said it is aiming to open a permanent space in Birmingham by next spring.

SRS Real Estate Partners has promoted Kyle Fant to managing director and co-market leader of the firm’s capital markets practice in New York. Fant joined SRS in 2017 as a senior vice president with his partner, managing director and fellow co-market leader Britt Raymond, to lead capital markets deals in New York City and across the East Coast. Since they joined SRS, the team of Raymond and Fant has completed more than $1 billion of net lease asset transactions in 28 states. Fant, who has nearly a decade of experience in investment sales of net lease retail, medical, and industrial properties across the country, has a client base consisting primarily of merchant developers that typically build properties then sell them and private and public institutions, family offices, private investors, and multiunit franchise operators.

“Kyle has been an integral part of our firm’s capital markets team and our growth since joining SRS six years ago,” Matthew Mousavi, managing principal of capital markets at SRS, said in a statement. Mousavi said SRS is confident Fant and Raymond will continue to grow the firm’s presence in New York City and surrounding regions.

Lee & Associates South Florida has added 20-year industry veteran Bert Checa as a principal in South Florida. Based in Miami, Checa has experience in the marketing and negotiation of leasing office space and has represented numerous landlords and tenants that include Fortune 500 and private local corporations, major institutions and local private investors. Before he joined Lee & Associates, Checa served as a vice president in Transwestern’s office agency leasing group for South Florida. He also has worked as a senior broker at Holly-Sime Real Estate and Coldwell Banker Commercial Advisors. His high-profile leasing assignments have included Miami Tower and 4770 Biscayne in downtown Miami and 4000 Ponce, Miami Green, Santona Corner and 1805 Ponce de Leon in Coral Gables, Florida. Checa said he was attracted to Lee & Associates, in part, because the firm is owned by its brokers, and that helps prevent conflicts of interest. “Given the economic headwinds the market is facing, it has never been more important for office landlords to make sure their broker is responsive, proactive and not conflicted,” Checa said in a statement.