LOS ANGELES—JLL is investing long-term in the retail market. In an earlier story, GlobeSt.com reported that the leading brokerage firm acquired Wilson Retail Group, a leading retail agency-leasing firm in the Southern California region. JLL purchased the firm as part of a strategic move to focus more on the retail market, especially in the Southwestern region.

“This is one of our key strategic growth mandates across the country and in particular in this region,” Peter Belisle, market director for JLL's Southwest region, tells GlobeSt.com. “We currently are doing retail, but not at the scale that we want to and not at the scale that our client base is looking for; so, having the leadership of Chris and Scott to both work with and grow our existing client base is a great fit.” Wilson Retail Group founder and principal Chris Wilson and president Scott Burns will join JLL as market leaders—Wilson for the Southwest region and Burns for Los Angeles—and both will report to Belisle. 

Although the retail market is booming at the moment, with national vacancy rates hitting all-time lows, JLL's focus is more about long term growth rather than the current market conditions. “This play for us is a long-term play. So, while it is fantastic that consumer spending is up and we are in a great economic cycle, and we probably will have that for several years to come, we look at this from a strategic perspective as a long-term play,” says Belisle. “It is not necessarily where we are in the retail cycle, but really a longer vision for what we want to do with the growth of our business in this region.”

That vision includes recruiting a quality team and continuing to be experts in the market. “One of the things that is really important to us as a full-service real estate platform is that we have the full range of services, both for our occupier clients and our investor clients,” Belisle adds. “The other piece that is important is geographic coverage, so having that dispersion across the country is really important to us.”