Commercial Real

Cushman & Wakefield, an international real estate brokerage in New York, will expand to Baltimore next week with a lineup of local veteran brokers from the former Trammell Crow Co. Rival CB Richard Ellis Group Inc, the world's largest commercial real estate services company, acquired Trammell Crow in December for about $1.79 billion. Earlier this month, Cushman & Wakefield ended its alliance with MacKenzie Commercial Real Estate Services LLC of Lutherville to expand on its own after MacKenzie turned down offers to be acquired.

Although residential real estate markets have struggled, commercial real estate investments have continued to prosper. Proving an army of doomsayers wrong, real estate mutual funds and real estate investment trusts (REITs) have outperformed the Standard & Poor's 500 for seven consecutive years and could be poised to run their winning streak to eight this year. The average mutual fund investing in real estate-related stocks gained about 33 percent in 2006, topped in performance only by emerging-markets funds, according to Lipper Inc. The three-year annualized return of 25 percent and 10-year annualized return of 15 percent also are impressive.

AdvertisingSass names Dawson, Smith senior account executivesSass & Associates appointed Jennifer Dawson and Jeff Smith as senior account executives.Dawson, formerly of Eisner & Associates, is a Towson University graduate and lives in Annapolis. Smith, an Easton resident, was head of sales for Oxford Yacht Agency before joining the Annapolis advertising and marketing agency.Delgado, Cabrera join Campbell GroupThe Campbell Group, the Baltimore marketing communications firm, added Patricia Delgado and Miguel Cabrera to its account services staff to assist with its increase in Latin American clientele.

New positionsRouse appoints Glenn, Lundquist vice presidentsThe Rouse Co. appointed Melanie M. Lundquist vice president and controller, and Gordon H. Glenn vice president and general counsel for the Columbia-based property management and development firm.Lundquist, with Rouse since 1991, formerly was a senior manager with KPMG. A graduate of Towson University, the Woodbine resident is a certified public accountant and active in several professional organizations.Glenn, a law graduate of George Washington University, joined Rouse in 1979 as a senior attorney.

KLNB Inc. announced yesterday that it has expanded into Pennsylvania, becoming the first locally owned commercial real estate brokerage and property management firm to have a presence to the north.The Towson-based firm's entry into Pennsylvania comes as a result of a merger with Campbell Jackson-Cross Realty, a Harrisburg-based brokerage company. The new office, comprising eight real estate brokers and property managers, will be led by Arthur D. Campbell, who formed Campbell Jackson-Cross in 1996.

Two months after completing a controversial purchase of 117 Water St., the city is quietly trying to sell the downtown office building it bought from a member of the city's Parking Advisory Board to demolish for a garage.The city's effort to shed the nine-story building is a sign that the building will not be included in plans for a new parking facility.The $2 million purchase by the Baltimore Development Corp. on May 12 raised questions and concerns from Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, the city councilman who chairs the council's committee overseeing funding for parking garages and city real estate officer Anthony J. Ambridge.

Merritt Properties LLC, flush with cash and aided by the robust economy, said yesterday that it will spend about $50 million to develop a 20-acre site in Columbia with four office buildings, two restaurants and a day care center.A partnership in which Merritt controls a majority stake -- Horse Farm-Linden LLC -- acquired the property last month for $3.775 million from the University of Maryland System.Merritt, a large Baltimore-based commercial real estate developer, plans to develop 350,000 square feet of class "A" office space on the tract of land, known as "the Horse Farm."

Ed St. John has seen more than a few peaks and valleys over the course of three decades in the commercial real estate business.And in the mind of the MIE Properties Inc. president, 1999 will mirror the year before: While healthy, it will be neither zenith nor nadir.He isn't alone in that prediction. Throughout the Baltimore-area commercial real estate market, industry experts say the coming 12 months will be prosperous for all types of real estate."I think you'll see continued momentum at work in both the office and industrial sectors," said Robert A. Manekin, president of Casey & Associates Inc., a Baltimore-based real estate services firm.

Fueled by a stable local economy and anticipated job growth, Baltimore's commercial real estate market will continue to surge ahead this year, local analysts predict.Unlike the past years of this decade, though, the coming 12 months will be ones in which developers will begin new office projects, in reaction to a dearth of new construction, shrinking vacancies and increasing rent rates throughout the metropolitan area."We're in a recovery mode in all sectors," said Anthony W. Deering, chairman and chief executive of the Rouse Co., the Columbia-based real estate concern that controls the 28-story Legg Mason Tower and Harborplace downtown and a collection of office buildings and retail malls in the suburbs.

The Johns Hopkins University and a local development firm have teamed up to produce what is being described as one of the first comprehensive forecasts for both the Baltimore and Washington commercial real estate markets.Trend Watch, an outlook sponsored by developer Manekin Corp. and produced by Johns Hopkins' Allan L. Berman Real Estate Institute, is based on interviews with 120 real estate industry, business and government leaders.Hopkins and Manekin hope that the survey will not only radiate widely held opinions on the dynamics of the local markets, but also assist developers and businesses in making real estate decisions.

Gregory E. Masi, a senior real estate adviser with Manekin LLC, died Tuesday of complications from lung cancer, Manekin announced Thursday. He was 57. Mr. Masi had worked in commercial real estate for more than 26 years, specializing in leasing, property acquisition, disposition and advisory services. "This is a very sad time for all of us at Manekin LLC," said Robert A. Manekin, senior vice president for brokerage. "Greg was the consummate professional, whose skills, character and integrity were recognized throughout the region's commercial real estate industry."

Bernard Manekin, whose commercial real estate firm that he owned and operated with his brother for more than 50 years succeeded in transforming Baltimore's skyline and self-image, died Saturday in his sleep at his home in the St. James condominiums on North Charles Street. The longtime Northwest Baltimore resident was 95. "He was one of the original visionaries who made our Charles Center and ultimately the Inner Harbor a success. If he hadn't been able to lease One Charles Center in a poor economic climate, the whole project might have died right there," said Martin L. Millspaugh Jr., who was the first chief executive of Charles Center-Inner Harbor Management Inc., which oversaw the development in the 1960s of the harbor and what became Charles Center.

Who wants to be a bailout recipient? We do! say the steel companies. Not content with what is likely to be the biggest public works program in decades, Big Steel wants to ensure taxpayers buy bridge, road, school and electric-grid steel only or largely from U.S. producers. Every provision in Congress' forthcoming stimulus should contain "a buy America clause," Nucor CEO Daniel R. DiMicco told The New York Times. What a good idea. The Buy America Act of 1933, signed by Herbert Hoover as he exited his miserable presidency, fueled a global trade war that hurt American exports and made the Great Depression even greater.

Commercial real estate has battled the nationwide credit crunch better than other industries, but that could be coming to an end. Mall owner General Growth Properties announced this week that debt problems could force it to sell assets or even the whole company. Analysts said the decision highlights a growing problem in commercial real estate as Wall Street turmoil seeps into markets across the country. Some commercial property owners are finding themselves in the same situation as many homeowners.

Marie Lorraine Fiset, a retired microbiologist who later changed careers and became a commercial real estate agent, died Sept. 6 at Good Samaritan Hospital of complications from a stroke. She was 80. Marie Lorraine Gosselin was born and raised in Berlin, N.H. After graduating from Berlin High School, she earned a bachelor's degree in 1948 from Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass. Dr. Fiset, who preferred to be called Lorraine, interned at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Woods Hole, Mass.

Banking and finance * SunTrust Bank Mid-Atlantic named A. David Horsman as group manager for commercial real estate in Virginia, Washington and Maryland. * The Columbia Bank appointed David L. Wheeler as senior vice president of branch banking for the Howard County-based institution. He is responsible for the daily operations of 15 branch offices in four counties. * Merrill Lynch & Co. appointed Ryan C.A. Kirby as associate resident director of its Salisbury office. Insurance * AAA Mid-Atlantic selected Donald R. Gagnon as chief executive officer of AAA Mid-Atlantic and the AAA Mid-Atlantic Insurance Co. Professional services * Frederick Ward Associates said Chuck Cooper has joined the architectural division of the Bel Air firm as a senior project manager.

The region's multiple-listing service for residential real estate is launching an exchange for commercial properties that could eventually include about 10,000 properties. Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc., which is owned by 25 Realtor associations in four states and the District of Columbia, now covers mostly residential properties, though commercial properties tend to account for 10 percent to 20 percent of listings. Members have been asking for a service dedicated to commercial real estate that brokers can use to market their listings in the Mid-Atlantic, Jonathan Hill, MRIS vice president of business development, said yesterday.

The Baltimore-Washington region is better equipped than much of the nation to weather the economic downturn in commercial real estate, thanks to the proximity of federal government jobs and top universities that attract employers, according to an outlook released yesterday by the Johns Hopkins University's real estate department and a local chapter of the Appraisal Institute. Trend Watch 2008, an annual survey of about 120 regional experts in real estate, development, investment sales and business, says the federal government will continue to be a stable source of jobs, while universities will attract employers in defense, life sciences and telecommunications, helping to cushion the region's commercial real estate market and keeping property values stable for the next couple of years.

Acquisitions JPB Enterprises Inc., a privately held Columbia-based holding company, acquired DisplayWorks LLC and Marketcraft LLC. The two firms were North American subsidiaries of British-based MICE Group PLC. Financial terms were not disclosed. Organizations National Association of Industrial and Office Properties, Maryland Chapter unveiled a new membership program, Developing Leaders, aimed at attracting young professionals in, or interested in entering, the commercial real estate industry.

Office, markets forecast in report NAI KLNB, a full-service commercial real estate services firm with locations in Maryland, Northern Virginia and Washington, has released a 32-page end-of-year report that analyzes and offers predictions about the office and industrial markets in Howard, Anne Arundel and Prince George's counties. The report, available by calling 410-290-1110 or e-mailing ariorda@klnb.com, provides analysis of recent performance in the commercial and residential land industries and the institutional sales sector.