Forecasting still more room for growth in Nevada, California-based Voit Commercial Brokerage set its sights on Southern Nevada last year and opened a. full-service brokerage firm in Las Vegas in late 2002. The new office specializes in sales and leasing of office, industrial and retail properties, as well as investment property sales. Longtime Las Vegans Kit Graski and Kevin Higgins opened Voit’s Las Vegas office as senior vice presidents. Their goal? To drive a strong industrial team and retail team first, building upon their strong relationships in the market.
Within the first week of Voit’s Las Vegas launch, DP Partners selected the company as the exclusive leasing representative for its Logisticenter industrial park. The 2 million-square-foot industrial park is being developed on 104 acres off I-15 between Craig and Cheyenne, fronting Pecos. DP Partners, one of the nation’s 10 largest private industrial developers, also named Voit as its exclusive representative for existing Southern Nevada projects. Other recent activity for Voit includes distribution/industrial development in North Las Vegas, along with a new Food 4 Less prototype at Craig and Simmons, a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Marketplace planned in Henderson and a 100-acre power center at I-215 and Rainbow.
Prior to joining Voit, Graski was the number-one producing broker in the Las Vegas office of CB Richard Ellis and was responsible for the sale or leasing of properties including Hualapai Commons, Galleria Commons, Rainbow Promenade, Rainbow Plaza and Red Rock Commercial Center. He has represented clients such as Home Depot, Walgreen’s, Smith’s Food and Drug Centers, Bed, Bath and Beyond and Forest City Development. He is an active member in the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC).
Higgins, formerly of CB Richard Ellis, is one of the country’s top-producing industrial brokers and is president of the Southern Nevada Chapter of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties (NAIOP) as well as the Southern Nevada Chapter of the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors (SIOR). A 33-year resident of Las Vegas, Higgins represents tenants, users and developers on local and national levels. His clients have included DP Partners, Koll Real Estate Group, EJM Development, Prologis, Fertitta Enterprises, Levi Strauss and Gordon Gaming.
Las Vegas features a growing landscape like few others and typically fares extremely well, even amid swings in the economy, according to Graski and Higgins. The brokers add that retail is moving to service the master-planned communities that continue to crop up along the Beltway and in other growing areas. Graski and Higgins say their longevity in the market and knowledge of industrial and retail trends in Nevada sets them apart from others in their field. Said Higgins, “We know what people have done in the past and what they are doing currently. We know who has leased what and who has sold what.”
Voit recently announced the formation of a strategic alliance with Las Vegas-based advisory services firm Applied Analysis. Under the direction of the firm’s principals, Jeremy Aguero and Brian Gordon, Applied Analysis will provide Voit with commercial real estate market research, including: design and development of a comprehensive commercial real estate database; tracking and analysis of market indicators and evaluations on the local, regional and national economic climate; and collection of demographics, traffic counts and ancillary market-specific data.
A subsidiary of The Voit Companies, Voit Commercial Brokerage also has offices in Anaheim, Chula Vista, Irvine and San Diego, Calif. The company, headquartered in Woodland Hills, Calif., has completed more than $9 billion in transactions for retail, office, industrial, R&D and multi-family assets.