Partners Opening Office in Atlanta

HOUSTON – (By Michelle Leigh Smith for Realty News Report) – Partners Real Estate, a Houston-based commercial real estate firm, plans to open an office in Atlanta, according to Jon Silberman, managing partner of the firm.

Partners currently has offices in Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio. The Atlanta location will be Partners first office outside the Lone Star State.

‘We’ll announce (the Atlanta office) by mid-March. We have a great person who’ll be putting an acquisition program into place,” Silberman said at the firm’s press breakfast last week.

The Atlanta office will assist Partners, formerly known as NAI Partners, as it moves into other Southeastern markets. The office is expected to be located in Atlanta’s Midtown district where a significant number of mixed-use and high-rise projects have been developed in recent years.

The move into the Southeastern United States supports the company’s Partners Finance investment funds to pursue acquisitions outside of Texas.

Partners also has a large staff of commercial real estate brokers operating in Texas. Silberman leads a national 250-person commercial real estate services and investment company headquartered. Closely connected to the pulse of the real estate market Silberman remains active in brokerage work. “I continue to work directly with clients to apply my 30 years and over 20 million SF of experience representing companies with office and industrial space needs,“ Silberman said.

Leasing activity continues to be healthy in Houston’s industrial market despite strong construction in recent years and that led some to expect a pullback in the warehouse sector.

However, Silberman says they are seeing tremendous need for more industrial space, in fact, some buildings are being torn down to make room for more industrial.

“We look at where the rooftops are going,” says Gray Gilbert, a partner in the Industrial section of the firm. The firm showed that their light industrial arena has a low vacancy rate, with good rent growth.

In Central Texas, Partners sees excitement in smaller towns like Boerne, Buda, Kyle, and Taylor. Samsung is building a $17 billion semiconductor plant on 1,200 acres in Taylor, which is located about 30 miles northeast of Austin

“While once seen as tertiary markets, new growth has stretched the resources of the smaller city permitting and planning departments thin,” says Carter Perrin, Managing Director of Development for Partners. “They just don’t have the built-in manpower and infrastructure to handle the new residential growth. When all of a sudden, a company like Samsung shows up, it puts pressure on the engineering departments who are not accustomed to moving that fast.”

Silberman, who holds an electrical and computer engineering degree from the University of Texas, also founded Slate Software to follow his other passion – technology. Slate Software was created to help companies use technology and information to streamline their business, increase revenue and create business value. “Slate has expertise in Salesforce implementation, upgrading, customization and integration as well as custom software development and integration,” he says.

With his real estate organization, Silberman has national growth ambitions. His stated goal is to have 14 Partners offices around the country by 2028.

Midtown Atlanta Photo Courtesy of The Wilbert Group

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