Chicago’s commercial real estate firms are snagging star employees from each other as local knowledge wins out in the city’s competitive market.
Dan Stratis is taking over as Friedman Real Estate’s new Chicago Market Lead, a late April press release announced. Stratis joins Friedman with 25 years of commercial real estate experience including leadership roles at Inland Real Estate, Draper & Kramer and most recently, @ Properties Commercial, according to the release.
In his new role, Stratis will be tasked with growing the companies’ commercial and multifamily property management operations. Friedman has offices in Chicago, Farmington Hills, Michigan and Columbus, Ohio.
Needham, Massachusetts-based retail brokerage Bialow Real Estate added Ross Modjeska as a new Vice President to its Chicago office late last month, according to a press release. The firm, which represents both retail landlords and tenants, was founded by Corey Bialow over 20 years ago and has offices in Needham, Chicago and Atlanta.
Modjeska joins Bialow from Chicago-based developer McCaffery Interests, where he served as Director of Leasing. Past retail clients of Modjeska’s include Sephora, Starbucks, Shake Shack, Equinox, Sweetgreen, Chase Bank, F-1 Arcade and City Winery.
Commercial real estate firm Transwestern announced two new hires last month, according to a recent press release. Alissa Adler and John Homsher joined the company from Colliers, where they both served on the Capital Markets team. Both bring over 35 years of experience to their new positions and have worked together across office, industrial, single-tenant triple net leased, medical office and surplus corporate real estate. A few months ago, the company also snagged Blake Johnson from CBRE.
Marco Federow joined commercial real estate services firm Lee & Associates as a senior associate covering the industrial market within the City of Chicago, a late April press release stated. Federow most recently worked as director and transportation lead for KWILL Real Estate advisory. He will work with Sean Austin, principal at KWILL, and cover industrial submarkets from the Kinzie Corridor to the Stockyards.
Those historic industrial corridors were once a major hub of the region’s industrial and meatpacking industries but have faced competition from suburban markets, where developers have more room to build out super-sized facilities. Still, the centrally located submarkets provide a key access point to downtown Chicago.