Aug 10, 2000

Harbor Properties

Debra Keskey joined Seattle-based Harbor Properties as residential leasing manager in charge of all the developer's leasing. She starts with Harbor Steps North, which is well into leasing, and then The McGuire, where leasing will begin in January. Keskey worked the past three years as directory advertising consultant for US West Dex. Before that she was in sales for other print media and managed leasing and sales for various sizable residential projects.

CB Richard Ellis

Therese Mercer is director of CB Richard Ellis' Northwest corporate services group, which is rebuilding from personnel losses. Mercer comes from seven years with Julien J. Studley Inc. At Studley, she worked four years for Microsoft, managing five brokers who lined up 3 million square feet of Microsoft leases in 80 locations around the country. Mercer also worked for Lincoln Property Co. and Village Resorts Inc.

CB Richard Ellis had built its Northwest corporate services around experienced brokers Gary Danklefsen and Rob Larsen when they shifted two years ago from handling Boeing deals for Cushman & Wakefield. Danklefsen, Larsen and Ken Barnes have left, however, in the past six months, Danklefsen and Barnes to run a toy company.

P.B. Investments

P.B. Investments bought West Valley Commerce Center I & II in Kent from Spieker West Valley Associates. P.B., headed by Seattle investor Tom Leavitt, paid $3.9 million. The structures total 78,367 square feet, so the price equals $49.50 per square foot. The two light-industrial buildings house seven tenants including a cabinet-making company to a birdseed distributor. P.B. has no plans to change the property's use, said Brad Knowles, a broker with Industrial Brokerage Services. Tom Abbott and Reynolds Haas of Cushman & Wakefield represented Spieker. Spieker over the past year sold the bulk of its Seattle-area industrial portfolio to the California Public Employees Retirement System to shift its investments into area office properties.

Koss Property Management

Apartment manager Tamara Simon received the professional property manager designation from the National Association of Residential Property Managers. Fewer than 300 property managers hold the designation nationwide. Simon owns Koss Property Management in Seattle.

Security Properties

Tom Curran's Security Properties has 164 homes under development in the Poulsbo Place project off Jensen Way in Poulsbo. The three- to five-year project will feature mostly free-standing single-family homes, but will include 28 attached townhouses. A ribbon-cutting ceremony will take place on Thursday, Aug. 17, at 4 p.m

Aug 03, 2000

Susan Murphy back at Wright Runstad

Leasing whiz Susan Murphy's stint in the dot-com world lasted seven month. She plans to return to Wright Runstad & Co. after Labor Day, says Wright Runstad Chairman Jon Runstad. Murphy left as Seattle-based Wright Runstad's leasing manager at the start of this year to work as Amazon.com's senior program manager for global real estate, in charge of finding office and distribution space in various locations around the world. Wright Runstad's peers then said the firm suffered a blow in losing Murphy. Since then, Amazon.com's stock has plunged, turning up the pressure on the e-tailing giant to become profitable and racheting down the need to find more office and distribution space. Runstad said Murphy's experience on the "buy side of our business" will make her "just that much better at what she already does so very, very well." Murphy said only that she's happy to be back.

Seneca Real Estate Group

After 14 years with Boeing Co., Bart Heath has joined The Seneca Real Estate Group as project manager. Heath worked on Boeing construction and renovation projects in the Northwest and People's Republic of China. Currently, he's project manager for the Collins Library renovation, Jones and Howarth Halls renovation and a new residence hall construction, all located on the University of Puget Sound campus in Tacoma. Heath holds a B.S. degree from the University of Washington.

Kidder Mathews & Segner

Morgan Burbridge has joined Kidder Mathews & Segner as an office sales and leasing broker. After working as a research analyst with Rome & Associates in Redmond, Burbridge was a sales account executive with Clear Communications, a Lucent Technologies business partner. He holds a degree in economics from Seattle Pacific University.

Staubach Co.

Staubach Co. has added construction management services. Geoff Stodola heads the new division.

Griffin Group LLC

Could Texan Judy Lee Griffin see something ominous coming for the Puget Sound region's economy? Griffin's Texas-based brokerage recently opened an office in Mountlake Terrace under the name of Griffin Group LLC. She has staffed the office with agents Roger Christian, John Horne, Kimberlie Horne, Jerry Horsman, Victoria Horsman, John Schuster and Rene Vogel. She says about a dozen more agents may come on board this summer. Several of the already-hired agents also are loan officers for Guaranty Mortgage in Edmonds. The catch: Griffin's enterprise specializes in buying and selling of foreclosed and other distressed properties.