ST. LOUIS-CB Richard Ellis has promoted Jeffrey Kaiser, an SVP specializing in office properties, to managing director here. He replaces Peter Krombach, who retired earlier this year.
Kaiser, who joined the firm in 2000, will oversee all of the company’s operations in St. Louis. The company has been busy in the past few months, marketing the 34-acre former Gateway Academy as a corporate campus in Chesterfield, and the subleasing of almost 63,000 square feet for Westar Aerospace & Defense Group to RGA Insurance Co. in the Missouri Research Park.
Kaiser, who handles deals in both the suburbs and the struggling city, says he’s seeing tenants more likely to extend leases for longer periods or make relocation decisions. “This is a big shift from the past 24 months. I’m working now on three-to-four expansions of tenants, it’s something we haven’t seen for a while,” he says.
There’s still quite a bit of concessions made in order to lure and keep tenants, and the city still lags suburbs such as Clayton and Chesterfield, Kaiser says, but there has been momentum in the market. There are companies planning to grow downtown with hires, including locally based Wells Fargo Advisors and Edward Jones, he says. “We’re hoping to see decreasing vacancy and increased positive absorption, rather than the negative absorption we’ve seen,” he says.
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