BY THE NUMBERS

ST. LOUIS—The industrial vacancy rate in the St. Louis metro area ended the quarter at 6.7%, well below the historic average of 8.0%, according to Cushman & Wakefield. St. Charles County was the strongest driver of demand with more than 1.1 million square feet of net absorption for the quarter, followed by North County with 411,000. Asking rents have increased during the past year. The average asking rent was $4.45 per square foot as compared to $4.31 in the first quarter of 2016, a 3.25% year-over-year increase. C&W researchers say developers are continuing to put their land inventories into production and preparing to bring more space onto the market. “If construction activity stays in check, vacancy is expected to stay flat as demand keeps pace with supply.”

NEWS & NOTABLES

DETROIT—Newmark Grubb Knight Frank has just promoted four of its key brokerage team members in its Detroit office during the first quarter. “2017 is off to a great start for us, and as a result we are establishing new ways of reaching the marketplace and expanding our team's talent,” says Fred Liesveld, managing director of NGKF's Detroit office. NGKF's Detroit office has promoted the following four team members: Daniel Canvasser, who has served as senior managing director, has taken on the new role of executive managing director; Daniel Labes, formerly senior managing director, will now serve as executive managing director; Thomas Oldham, previously director, will assume the new role of senior managing director; Michael Valant, previously associate, has been promoted to director. In addition to the recent promotions, NGKF's Detroit office was named by CoStar Group, Inc. as one of 2016's Top sales and leasing firms in Metro Detroit.

CHICAGO—Ron Cinkus has just joined The Missner Group as senior project manager. Cinkus is an industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience in project management and construction. In his new role with Missner, Cinkus will manage projects from pre-construction through post-construction while coordinating the design and construction elements between the client, architect and engineers. He will also serve as project leadership monitoring the progress, budget and quality of various assignments. In addition, Cinkus will be responsible for estimating, scheduling, production, conceptual planning, budgeting and permitting. Cinkus was previously a senior project manager for United Insulated Structures Corp. in Berkeley, IL.

DEALTRACKER

TWINSBURG, OH—CBRE Group, Inc. has just acquired Mainstream Software, Inc., a technology company that provides mobile and software-as-a-service technology solutions for facilities management operations. Mainstream's proprietary technology further enhances CBRE's Global Workplace Solutions offering in the area of digital and technology-enabled services. Mainstream's technology supports more than 90,000 users, including many CBRE facility managers, clients and vendors and processes millions of facility work orders annually. The technology supports tenant work requests, reactive and preventive maintenance scheduling, and analytics for facilities in 50 countries.

BUILDING BLOCKS

DOWNERS GROVE, IL—High Street Residential, the wholly-owned residential subsidiary of Trammell Crow Co., has just begun construction on Maple&Main, a 6-story, class A+ mixed-use transit-oriented apartment building located in the center of downtown Downers Grove, IL. The project will include 115 apartment units, best-in-class resident amenities and about 4,000 square feet of ground floor retail/restaurant space. The firm will have the project will be ready for occupancy in 2Q 2018. “Maple&Main is a unique housing option in an attractive location,” says Grady Hamilton, managing director with High Street Residential's Midwest Business Unit. “We are investing in the future of Downers Grove and hope to make a meaningful impact in this community by continuing to invigorate the downtown.” ESG Architects serves as the project architect and Carlson Construction serves as the general contractor. David Paino, vice president, and Jerry Ebert, senior vice president, are overseeing project development on behalf of High Street. Jacob Dell, at CBRE Chicago is responsible for retail leasing.