Colliers Loses Kohnstamm, Adds Baker, Keeps Durdel

PORTLAND, OR-The regional office of Colliers International has been generating a lot of news since Sonna Durdel came aboard. The local property management magnate was hired in December on a short-term contract to recast its marketing and research divisions, launch a new property management division and find a successor to John Kohnstamm, who voluntarily stepped down as managing director of the office last June in order to focus on investment sales and acquisitions.The latest news is that Kohnstamm, who remained with Colliers as a broker and member of its advisory board, has moved his license to Capacity Commercial Group, and Durdel, who made millions selling her local property management firm Forum Properties to Insignia/ESG in 1997, has decided to stay on with Colliers indefinitely. Capacity Commercial is a locally based firm formed last year by former Trammell Crow office brokers Jeff Falconer and Mike Nye and industrial specialist Don Ossey and now boasts 10 brokers and four support staff. Kohnstamm, who worked largely autonomously at Colliers after stepping out of the director role, says he moved to Capacity Commercial in order to be part of a team atmosphere and to have an ownership stake in the firm. Kohnstamm says he will be engaged primarily in the acquisition and sale of office buildings. “We are a good fit,” Ossey tells GlobeSt.com. Durdel, who has spent part of each year on extended vacation since selling Forum Properties, tells GlobeSt.com that she made the decision to stay at Colliers after successfully luring her longtime Forum employee Pam Baker to the firm to help her lead its investment sales division. Baker, who has been heavily involved in charity work as of late, is experienced in large-scale landlord representation. One project to her credit is Dawson Creek Park, which she repositioned, marketed and sold, and then managed development of the buyers’ facilities. Combined, Baker and Durdel have nearly $1 billion of investment sales experience.Prior to finalizing the investment sales team, which also includes multifamily specialist Gary Winkler, Sonna recast the office’s marketing and research team and launched the firm’s new property management division. To launch the property management division, Sonna hired another pair of her former Forum employees, Sue Iggulden and Lisa Johnston, a veteran management team that came over from CB Richard Ellis and has worked together since 1992. Iggulden is GM of Colliers new Real Estate Management Services division. At CBRE, she was director of asset services, overseeing a diversified portfolio of 4.2 million sf. Johnston is a senior managing member of REMS. At CBRE, she was a senior property manager in charge of 825,000 sf of office, flex, industrial and retail space. In the past 45 days, the duo has landed 665,000 sf worth of management work that includes retail, class A office, suburban office and flex space.The marketing and research makeover included overhauling its market intelligence and creating processes for providing more tailored information to clients, says marketing director Heidi Stout, a former business journalist who jumped the fence last year and was hired by Durdel earlier this year. In addition, Stout says marketing services were improved for in-house brokers and made available to third-party clients.Still not checked off Durdel’s to-do list is the hiring of a new managing director. She remains tight-lipped about the finalists. An announcement is rumored to be coming down the pike within the next few weeks.