Cushman & Wakefield hires director in Tennessee; Leasing executive joins Colliers in Dallas; Matthews adds retail brokers in Atlanta

Cushman & Wakefield has hired Phil Fletcher as director of its Nashville, Tennessee, office. Fletcher was hired to specialize in office agency leasing and help grow the firm’s leasing practice. For more than a decade, Fletcher worked on landlord and tenant representation for Class A office buildings in San Francisco. He moved to Nashville in 2022 as vice president of The Cauble Group, where he led the firm’s office leasing and investment sales practice. “His experience working alongside local developers and investors on leasing A-grade properties in a major gateway market is a key differentiator," Dave Sansom, Cushman's managing principal of Nashville, said in a statement. Cushman & Wakefield’s Nashville office has grown to more than 240 employees managing in excess of 40 million square feet of commercial property across 350 buildings.

Colliers has hired Chris Wright as executive vice president and head of leasing in the Dallas-Fort Worth region. In the role, Wright will focus on business development while leading the leasing team, the brokerage said. He has handled office leasing, tenant representation, investment sales and business development in a commercial real estate career spanning more than two decades. He previously worked for JLL, Grubbs & Ellis and Rubicon Representation, completing nearly 1,000 transactions totaling more than 7.1 million square feet and $677 million in value during his career. Some of his largest deals include leases for Lockheed Martin, T-Mobile, Wells Fargo, Neiman Marcus and Thomson Reuters. “Chris' extensive experience and proven leadership in office leasing make him an invaluable addition to our team," Colliers executive managing director Daniel Taylor said in a statement.

Matthews Real Estate Investment Services, a firm that is expanding its retail leasing presence nationally, has hired Adrienne Crawford and Lily Heimburger as first vice presidents in Atlanta. The duo specializes in landlord representation. Crawford and Heimburger, who joined Nashville, Tennessee-based Matthews from SRS Real Estate Partners, have spent two decades working with developers, owners, retailers and restaurateurs.

They have worked on such as Atlanta properties as The Krog District, Atlantic Station and Edgewood Retail District. Crawford and Heimburger combine national, regional and local retailers to create an ideal tenant mix, Matthews said. “To compete in retail leasing, you need to build around true experts like Adrienne and Lily,” Matthews' Atlanta market leader Maxx Bauman said in a statement. Matthews' Atlanta office is located at 3060 Peachtree Road in the city's Buckhead district.

NewMark Merrill Cos., a Calabasas, California-based shopping center owner and development company, is launching a new firm focused on retail centers in undersupplied markets. NewMark Merrill Hadler Community Partners will acquire, develop, manage and operate the centers. NewMark Merrill President and CEO Sandy Sigal co-founded the new firm, and portfolio manager Jermaine McMihelk returned to NewMark Merrill to oversee day-to-day operations as managing director. He previously served as an asset manager with Primestor Development, where he led the operations and performance of grocery-anchored shopping centers held in partnership with Federal Realty Investment Trust. Prior to that, he spent five years at NewMark Merrill and also founded an investment business in which he opened the first Black-owned 7-Eleven franchise on Crenshaw Boulevard in Los Angeles County. "We have always focused on under-invested communities with projects in Inglewood, Rialto and others, but now we have a dedicated company and team providing these markets with the focus that they deserve,” Sigal said in a statement. NewMark Merrill owns or manages a portfolio of more than 100 shopping centers valued at over $3 billion.

Commercial brokerage Greenstone Partners has expanded its multifamily team with the addition of Jacob Goldstein as a director. A licensed broker since 2016, Goldstein has been involved in more than $100 million of multifamily and mixed-use transactions across Chicagoland. He is known for his market presence along Chicago’s Northside, with a specialized focus on neighborhoods along Chicago’s lakefront.

He joined Greenstone from Essex Realty Group, where he worked for eight years. Greenstone moved into the multifamily sector in 2022 with the addition of Jordan Multack and plans to grow the group. “Our clients own real estate across various asset classes, and being able to assist them with any transaction is crucial,” CEO and managing partner Danny Spitz said in a statement.