MCB Real Estate Acquires Pinkard Properties

Two Baltimore-based CRE firms are now one, with privately held institutional investment management firm MCB Real Estate’s just-completed acquisition of Pinkard Properties, a specialist in asset and property management services.

Pinkard’s 2 million square feet of office, flex/office, warehouse/industrial and retail space in the Maryland region have been added to MCB’s nationwide portfolio of operating assets totaling about 15 million square feet.

Pinkard co-founder Katharine Pinkard has been named senior managing director of property management for MCB Real Estate. MCB noted that its current property management division leader, Marty Lastner, recently announced plans to retire.

The acquisition boosts the number of MCB personnel in asset and property management from about 36 to about 50, an MCB spokesperson told Commercial Property Executive.

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MCB noted that it has in recent months acquired several varied assets that are widely separated geographically.

For example, this past September the company purchased a 368,000-square-foot Class A industrial facility in Howell Township, N.J., for $69.9 million. The seller of the newly completed Howell 1 was Active Acquisitions. MCB also signed a 15-year, full-building lease with a third-party logistics company.

The same month, a joint venture of MCB and a fund managed by DRA Advisors acquired Falcon Ridge Town Center, a fully leased 273,424-square-foot retail center in Fontana, Calif., for $64.7 million.

Given this steady growth, MCB President Gina Baker Chambers emphasized in a prepared statement the Pinkard acquisition’s importance in beefing up the company’s internal team.

Last June, Baker Chambers spoke at length with CPE about the challenges of development projects that are financially sound, environmentally sustainable and responsive to community needs.

Family history

Interestingly, the acquisition represents a kind of marriage between notable families with a historical connection. The Pinkard tradition began in 1922 with one W.C. Pinkard, whose grandson Walter Pinkard Jr. was in charge by the 1970s. Katherine Pinkard and her father, Greg Pinkard, founded Pinkard Properties in 2012, continuing the multi-generational tradition.

But here’s the twist. One of Greg’s brothers, Peter Pinkard, in 2007 was a co-founder of MCB Real Estate; he remains there as a managing partner.

Pinkard Properties’ Greg Pinkard meanwhile will serve MCB Real Estate in an advisory role.

Jarnell Swecker, managing director/marketing at MCB Real Estate, told CPE that while there hasn’t been any formal collaboration between the two companies (until now), “Baltimore is a close-knit market where everyone knows everyone … and Pinkard Partners, with their breadth of experience, matched up as the perfect partner for what MCB wanted to accomplish.”