Lee & Associates Checks Houston Off Its Expansion List

By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor

Jeffrey Rinkov, Lee & Associates

Joining forces with a top firm is one way for a commercial real estate services firm to facilitate a nationwide expansion plan, and Lee & Associates has done just that.

Lee & Associates, the largest broker-owned commercial real estate company in the U.S., has opened its first office in Houston by partnering with brokers of Griffin Partners Inc., a successful development, management and leasing company well-known across metropolitan Houston.

The new office will work with Lee & Associates Dallas/Fort Worth, allowing for a blending of the Dallas/Fort Worth office’s industrial properties expertise with the Griffin team’s extensive knowledge of the office sector.

While Lee & Associates is bringing Griffin’s brokerage division under its roof to form the Houston office, it will still maintain a working relationship with Griffin by providing project leasing services.

The timing is certainly spot on; the Houston and Dallas markets are steaming hot right now. The two metros rank among the top 5 commercial real estate markets in the country, according to PwC and the Urban Land Institute’s new Emerging Trends in Real Estate report, with Houston taking the number 1 spot, and Dallas winning the number 5 position.

With the Griffin deal in Houston and the teaming up with the Dallas/Fort Worth office, Lee & Associates’ goal, as Jeffrey Rinkov, CEO of Lee & Associates, noted in a prepared statement, is to “become a dominant player in this region.”

The merging with Griffin’s Houston brokerage team to establish a footprint in the booming Texas city marks just one of the steps that have been taken in Lee & Associates’ national expansion plan over the last several months. During the fall, the firm entered Ohio with the opening of an office in Cleveland, and over the summer, set up shop in Denver with new digs.