One of Cincinnati’s largest real estate firms moves into new office at the Banks
Colliers’ new Cincinnati headquarters office at the Banks is complete and fully occupied.
The commercial real estate firm, one of Greater Cincinnati’s largest, moved in June into a 14,000-square-foot space on the fifth floor of the Rosa Parks Building after signing a long-term lease in the first weeks of the year.
Colliers relocated its Cincinnati office from U.S. Bank Tower fronting Fountain Square, where it had spent the foregoing two decades.
The Rosa Parks Building, at 191 Rosa Parks St., is the former GE Global Operations Center.
Colliers’ space comprises a little less than half the floor along the eastern side of the building, with views through floor-to-ceiling windows of Great American Ball Park to the east and the Ohio River to the south.
The office houses Colliers’ team of nearly 70, including multiple new hires over the last year of seasoned veterans in multifamily and retail. The vast majority of the team, upwards of 90%, is in the office five days a week, according to Colliers Managing Director Joe Wiles.
The buildout totaled $3 million. Over-the-Rhine-based Luminaut designed the space. Hunt Builders was the general contractor. Colliers turned to LOTH, Inc. for furniture.
Wiles said the reaction to the new office has been overwhelmingly positive from clients, members of the Cincinnati team and Colliers’ leadership visiting from outside the market.
It’s been one of those assets of the business we’ve never been able to capitalize on, having a space you can be proud of and that you’d want to have a client see,” Wiles told the Courier. “Everything we’ve done has been very highly regarded.
Along the perimeter of the office, there are huddle rooms and two conference rooms as well as 26 private offices with glass walls and doors. Cubicles occupy the interior corridor.
The office’s main conference room has capacity for 24.
The south-facing space, with views of the Roebling Bridge and the Ohio River, houses a bar and a large lounge area as well as a culinary center with seating for 60.
Wiles described the combination of open office and private areas as the best of both worlds in office design. “It’s important to maintain the quietness of the office and the functionality of the workspace, while having rooms where you can hop in and have a quick meeting,” he said.
The Rosa Parks building has a third-floor shared conference rooms of varying sizes, the largest of which can hold 250. It has a fitness center and a grab-and-go foodservice area on the same floor.
Colliers’ John Schenk and Matt Smyth represented the firm in the lease negotiations. CBRE’s John Eckert and Scott Yards represented the Rosa Parks Building’s landlord, 90 North.
Colliers’ Cincinnati office operated until 2022 as a locally owned affiliate of Colliers International Group Inc. That year, the publicly traded firm acquired the Cincinnati affiliate entity from its longtime owner and leader, Shenan Murphy.
The ensuing four years, which took place during an earnout phase of the acquisition deal, involved disposing the local team to the full Colliers toolkit: project management, debt, structured finance, construction services, property management and more.
“Our team has really learned how to use all the assets available to us,” Wiles said. “Having it under one roof and having great and talented people lead those divisions has given us more opportunity to go talk to clients, not necessarily always about physical real estate, but everything that goes along with it.”
The local team has some big opportunities in the pipeline.
“We’re really playing in the deep end of the pool right now with some of these things we’re working on, some that are really long-term opportunities, not just buying a building but partnering with some of the larger firms in the city and the region and handling their real estate and property management and debt and finance,” Wiles told the Courier.