Savills Studley Plans Pacific Northwest Expansion

By Gail Kalinoski

Eric Blohm (left) and Eric Leland (right) of Savills Studley

Seattle–Earlier this year Savills Studley President Michael Colacino said the leading tenant representation firm was in growth mode and looking to Seattle as a new market for expansion. Enter Eric Blohm and Eric Leland, the firm’s new senior managing directors, who are now overseeing operations in the Seattle metro area.

Blohm and Leland joined Savills Studley from Mohr Partners Inc., where they were managing principals and co-founded the firm’s Seattle office in 2011. Several members of their team also joined Savills Studley: Managing Director Marcelo Garces, assistant directors Steve Perkins and Ian Ducharme and Administrative Assistant Rebecca Kasper. They had all worked under Blohm and Leland at Mohr Partners.

Seattle already serves as the West Coast hub for the company’s Worldwide Occupier Services platform, led by Senior Managing Director Jose Oncina. The firm’s office is currently in downtown Bellevue, Wash., but will be moving to downtown Seattle in early 2017.

“Seattle has long been a city of innovation, leading the way in advancements in technology, aerospace, medicine, education and logistics. Savills Studley’s culture of unconventional thinking and our ability to execute fresh solutions to complex occupancy issues is well matched to Seattle’s thriving business culture,” Colacino said in a prepared statement. “We are at the forefront of how companies use space and in the delivery of smart real estate strategies that transform engagement, operations and performance.”

Blohm told Commercial Property Executive that he and Leland reached out to Savills Studley because they wanted to be part of a firm with a global platform. He said they talked with other commercial real estate services firms, but their first choice was to remain with a company like Savills Studley that also focused exclusively on tenant representation.

“As tenants become more sophisticated and the globalization of companies continues to require additional service capabilities, it became evident that our clients would be better served by a firm with a strong, integrated global platform,” Blohm said in prepared remarks. “Savills Studley’s commitment to exclusively representing tenants, and its comprehensive platform for office, industrial and retail clients reinforced our confidence in the decision to join the company.”

“The opportunity to start the Savills Studley office in Seattle and grow that and be associated with that was attractive,” he told CPE.

Blohm said they felt it was in their clients’ best interests to join a global leader like Savills Studley to continue to offer seamless delivery of services both nationally and internationally. He said they would also have “more horsepower behind us” from the addition of value-add services from Savills Studley like transaction management, occupier services, lease administration, project and consultant management.

He said the move to Savills Studley paid off recently with a client who was looking to expand its presence in Singapore. Blohm said he was able to call Savills Studley’s international desk which quickly put him in touch with the firm’s Singapore office which lead to a deal being made that he would not have been able to handle in the past because of a lack of international contacts. Now the Seattle office is backed by Savills Studley’s extensive worldwide resources, including a global network of specialized experts, industry-leading market research, advanced portfolio analytics, workforce optimization and services delivery expertise.

Savills Studley was attracted to Blohm and Leland’s team because of its reputation for precise financial and market analytics, lease negotiations and transaction execution. The two men have a combined 50 years of experience representing tenants. Some of their clients have included HTC, Micron Technologies, DaVita, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Washington Federal Inc., and Expeditors International of Washington. Their focus is on strategic real estate planning and deal structuring involving the development, construction and investment of commercial real estate assets for CRE tenants.

Blohm and Leland had met at Sabey Corp., a private real estate development company in Seattle and they bring that development expertise to the table too. He said they focus mainly on office, warehouse/industrial, biotech labs and data centers.

Savills Studley was formed in 2014 from a merger of Studley, a New York-based national brokerage company, with London-headquartered Savills plc, one of the world’s largest real estate advisory firms. In the past 18 months, Savills Studley has also established new offices in Phoenix, Minneapolis, Baltimore and Austin, Texas. It has also completed several acquisitions including Real Facilities, a major Canadian tenant representation firm; Cooper Brady Partners in Silicon Valley; Tampa-based Vertical Integration and KLG Advisors.