By Joshua Burd
Cresa, the largest tenant-only commercial real estate brokerage, has announced a new management team in New Jersey and is on the hunt for new space and new talent.
The firm announced Friday that its new leadership team include managing principals James Scancarella and Dennis Gralla and Principal Jonathan Marks. They now oversee an office that serves 21 primary submarkets between New York City and Princeton, providing corporate real estate services to industries such as technology, legal, pharmaceutical, biotech and insurance.
Cresa, whose New Jersey office was most recently based in Rutherford, is planning to aggressively recruit new staff to grow the operation and is looking for new offices in the Meadowlands area.
“Cresa has always had a strong presence in New Jersey, where we are the leading, pure tenant rep advisory firm,” Jim Underhill, CEO of Cresa, said in a prepared statement. “Companies increasingly are turning to our platform of tenant representation, whereby we avoid conflicts of interest by serving tenants, not landlords.
“Our clients are looking to us to expand our platform in New Jersey, and that necessitated a senior management change. With our new leadership, we are now ready to go to the next level.”
Scancarella and Gralla each has more than 20 years’ experience at Cresa in New Jersey. Scancarella said the office is forecasting revenue growth of 25 percent this year.
“We have had a very solid foundation in New Jersey since we opened in 1997,” Scancarella said. “In addition to serving hundreds of local clients, our scope is national and global as we work closely with Cresa offices around the world. Today, we have a terrific opportunity to build our client base, and we’re getting great traction from companies that appreciate our client service model.”
Cresa also announced its renewed focus on its medical practice group, which it opened in recent years in response to the growing health care industry. The group is directed by Marks.
Gralla, meantime, said he expects Cresa’s New Jersey office to expand its current headcount significantly by the end of the year.
“We have been receiving numerous calls from experienced brokers who want to join our team, and we will soon be announcing new opportunities within the firm,” Gralla said. “We’re looking for professionals who share the cultural and philosophical values that Jim and I hold dear, and that starts with providing non-biased representation that traditional firms with a dual-agency approach can’t match.”
