By Joshua Burd
Biggins Lacy Shapiro & Co. LLC, the Princeton-based location advisory firm, is expanding westward with the opening of a new office in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The company said Friday it was establishing the office in Walnut Creek, California. Andrew Shapiro, a longtime managing director with the firm, will lead the new practice in the region.
The location will offer BLS & Co.’s full range of services including site selection, economic development incentives structuring and negotiations and energy and utility procurement and assessment, the firm said in a news release. BLS has established itself as one of the leading players in the commercial real estate sector in New Jersey and elsewhere, serving as a key adviser in high-profile corporate relocations.
“Our clients have urged us to make this move and after careful deliberation we’ve decided that now is the right time to expand,” said Jay Biggins, BLS & Co.’s executive managing director. “Andy’s skills and experience, acquired during his thirty-year career as a management consultant, have made him the obvious choice to launch our West Coast practice group.”
BLS serves its clients using a team of attorneys, project finance and tax specialists, planners and engineers, among others. Its new San Francisco Bay Area location now gives the firm a nationwide footprint, adding to existing offices in Princeton, Manhattan, Chicago and Cleveland.
“We have witnessed tremendous interest from companies presently located in the Mountain West or anticipating growing jobs and making investments in the region,” Shapiro said. “Our new office enables BLS & Co. to better serve our existing and our new clients; I am very pleased to be leading the change.”
Shapiro joined BLS & Co. in 2001 and leads the firm’s location advisory practice, the news release said. Prior to joining BLS & Co., he spent more than a decade with Fantus Consulting, Moran Stahl & Boyer and Deloitte.
He also managed development for PSI Realty in New England and Florida. Earlier he held positions in marketing and land use with the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority and Office of Comprehensive Planning in Virginia.
