Lee & Associates Opens Second Office in Texas

HOUSTON - Jan. 26, 2015 - PRLog -- HOUSTON, Texas—January 26, 2015—Lee & Associates (http://www.lee-associates.com/), the largest broker-owned commercial real estate firm in the nation, announces that it has opened a second office in Texas. Lee & Associates Houston, which comes two months after Lee opened an office in Denver, Colorado, will join the Lee & Associates Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) team in providing enhanced client services by increasing its geographic outreach in key areas of Texas in the industrial and office markets.

The Lee & Associates Houston office is comprised of brokers from Griffin Partners, Inc., a highly reputable local boutique real estate player, who has partnered with Lee & Associates to open an office in the highly desired Houston market. The new Houston office will be located at the One Riverway building in the heart of the Galleria submarket in the Riverway Office building complex.

With a team of 12 brokers, Lee Houston will be headed by Chris Lewis, Managing Principal, and Principals Drew Lewis, Josh Cheatham, and Travis Taylor. Lee & Associates Houston will continue its close-working relationship with Griffin Partners, providing project leasing services. Together, the two will provide property management, investment, development, construction, build-to-suit, and project management services to their clients.

“We are extremely excited about expanding our presence in the Texas market,” said Jeffrey Rinkov (http://resources.lee-associates.com/asp/user/website/Brok...), CEO of Lee & Associates. “Along with our Dallas/Fort Worth offices, this move will allow us to provide our expert services in key areas of Texas. Along with our excellent team in DFW, we have every expectation to become a dominant player in this region.”

Trey Fricke and Ken Wesson, both partners in Lee & Associates DFW office, were instrumental in putting this team together and opening this office.

“We are fortunate to have this team of Houston brokers join the Lee & Associates platform,” said Wesson. “They are dominant players in the Houston market place and we believe, by leveraging their office background with the Dallas office’s industrial depth, we will be able to exponentially expand our client services to continued growth throughout Texas.”  .

Chris Lewis, who is a tenant services specialist, is an expert in the Houston and overall Texas marketplace. With more than 15 years of commercial real estate including  investment analysis, project leasing, office & industrial tenant representation, building sales, asset management, and datacenter transactions, Chris Lewis was a key player in one of Houston’s more prestigious real estate firms, Griffin Partners. It was there he initially served as part of the acquisition and disposition team, where he worked with lenders, investors and sellers, analyzing and assembling the large scale commercial real estate transactions. With his father Drew Lewis, Chris Lewis started and expanded the Griffin Brokerage efforts and co-founded the national mission critical services team, which focused strictly on datacenters and disaster recovery need for clients. In addition to local Houston knowledge, he will play a role in bringing these mission critical services to the national Lee & Associates service lines.

Drew Lewis has more than four decades in real estate experience in management  and  ownership, and he has successfully completed hundreds of assignments that include millions of square feet leased, as well as, the creation of the of three successful  brokerage companies. He is an expert in market forecasting, project marketing, leasing, sales, client representation, built-to-suit building development, sale/leaseback, capital investment, and finance and consulting.

Josh Cheatham, a veteran in transacting complex real estate assignments, is an expert in office & industrial tenant/corporate services. Entering the business in 2006, he quickly excelled and was named Top 10 Producerand earned the title of Rising Star in 2011 by NAIOP for office tenant in the Houston market. At Lee & Associates Houston, Cheatham will be working closely with Chris in leading the firm and Drew Lewis in tenant and corporate services

Travis Taylor, who is a specialist in office tenant representation, has experience in real estate leasing, building sales, and office tenant representation. Travis has been a top producer in each of the last two years and is known as a rising star.

“Our group has an outstanding reputation and is known for our broad-based capabilities in servicing our clients’ needs,” said Chris Lewis. “With four decades of outstanding service and our excellent reputation in the Houston market, our agents are held to a higher standard because of their direct integration with the principals and investors of the firm. We are excited about the opportunities that the Lee platform provides our team and our clients, and we are looking forward to the ability to expand our reach with the other Lee offices in the network. We are excited to be a part of the foundation of a new office location for the Lee team, and we believe that the opportunities are endless for growth and diversity in this Houston and surrounding Texas market.”

Lee & Associates Houston follows a series of recent Lee office openings in Denver, Cleveland, New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, Naples/Ft. Myers and Orlando, FL., Charleston, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Kansas City and Greenville, S.C. and underscores Lee’s methodical and opportunistic strategy of nationwide expansion in 2015 and beyond.

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About Lee & Associates

Celebrating more than 36 years of leadership excellence in commercial real estate, Lee & Associates is the largest broker-owned firm in the country with 52 locations across the nation including California, Colorado, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin. With almost 800 brokers nationwide, Lee & Associates provides a wide range of specialized commercial real estate services on a local, regional and national level. Additional information can be found at http://www.lee-associates.com.