Cresa to Manage National United Access Portfolio

By Keith Loria, Contributing Editor

Cresa has been chosen by United Access, a supplier of wheelchair-accessible vehicles and equipment, to manage its national real estate portfolio of 26 industrial and retail sales and service centers.

The portfolio spans from Oregon to New York, spread across 11 states (Oregon, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Kansas, Tennessee and New York).

“From the perspective of United Access, outsourcing real estate work—lease renewals, relocation, new store openings, etc.—will allow corporate staff to stay lean and focused on growing their portfolio of locations,” Cresa Senior Vice President Mike Statter told Commercial Property Executive. “Utilizing the Cresa platform for managing client portfolios is a means to inject value into this relationship by providing a single point of contact for communications, employing knowledgeable local brokers to handle assignments and applying experience in negotiations.”

The properties average about 8,000 square feet per location, with a total of just over 200,000 square feet. Approximately half of the facilities are retail and half are industrial.

As the portfolio manager, Cresa is now responsible for lease administration, strategic planning, all transaction management, lease negotiations, site selection and relocation management for their properties across the country. 

“For companies with multiple locations, managing a portfolio can be daunting; finding the right brokerage firm to work with, juggling multiple relationships and transactions, and creating leverage in negotiations are just a few of the headaches encountered,” Statter said. “Utilizing a tenant representation-only platform, and with more than 50 Cresa offices in North America, Cresa Denver possesses the support and market insight to provide best-in-class real estate advice in any metropolitan area.”

According to Statter, United Access would like to see their footprint grow in the coming years.

“Given our focus on expansion, outsourcing our real estate management to Cresa made a lot of sense,” Jeff Brummett, United Access’ CEO, said in a prepared release. “Having a single point of contact for our national real estate needs allows us to be fully focused on expanding our business so that we can better serve the needs of our clients.”

Strong Industrial Market

There’s been a lot of activity in the industrial market inn the past week. Dalfen America Corp. acquired Alum Creek Business Center, a 303,000-square-foot industrial property located close to Rickenbacker International Airport in Columbus, Ohio; PCCP LLC and Blue Steel Development have partnered to acquire a 154-acre site in Lakeland, Fla., on which the partners will develop a 1.4 million-square-foot industrial park; and Artis REIT has acquired a nine-building industrial portfolio in Colorado and Arizona from BPP Pacific for $40 million.