CBRE Adds Stuart Kenny to Atlanta Office Sales Team

As investors start hunting discounted Atlanta office towers, CBRE is rebuilding a team to chase the deals.

The Dallas-based brokerage brought Stuart Kenny back to Atlanta from its Washington, D.C., office to bolster its office property sales team months after a string of high-profile departures left it gutted, the Atlanta Business Chronicle reported.

Kenny joined CBRE Capital Markets’ Institutional Properties Group in Atlanta, partnering with longtime Vice Chair Will Yowell. He has worked on more than $2 billion in office transactions, according to CBRE. He previously served as a management consultant with PwC in New York and holds an economics degree from the University of North Carolina.

Office building sales in Atlanta are showing signs of life after a long slump triggered by high interest rates and tightening debt markets.

Nearly $700 million worth of office properties changed hands in the metro in January through May this year, up from last year’s pace but still below peak values from 2021 and 2022, according to CommercialCafe. Average sale prices hovered around $163 per square foot in that period.

CBRE’s Atlanta office-sales team took a major hit late last year, when veterans Jay O’Meara, Justin Parsonnet and Ryan Reethof jumped ship to Newmark just as dealmaking showed signs of a broader rebound. That team had handled landmark sales including the Bank of America Plaza and Buckhead’s 3630 Peachtree tower, and their exit left CBRE scrambling to rebuild. Newmark at the time hailed the hires as a watershed moment for its Southeast capital markets division.

CBRE is the city’s top commercial brokerage by transaction volume, but the competitive landscape is shifting quickly as buyers test whether the office market has finally hit bottom.

With Kenny’s return, the firm is positioning itself to recapture share in a market where opportunistic buyers are circling discounted assets, and investors are ready to “play offense,” as O’Meara told the outlet in December.

— Judah Duke