JLL Snaps Up SRS Principal Patrick Smith for Retail Boost
By Lauren Elkies Schram October 26, 2015 5:10 pm
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Patrick Smith, an executive vice president and northeast region principal at SRS Real Estate Partners, is leaving for JLL after more than 15 years at the global retail brokerage, Commercial Observer has learned. He starts his position as vice chairman of New York retail brokerage at JLL on Wednesday. The hiring is part of JLL’s nationwide push to bolster its retail brokerage, including in New York City.
“We’ve had a gap here,” Phil Palmer, an executive managing director and head of JLL’s office and retail brokerage in New York City, told CO. “Seven retail brokers is not a large team of retail brokers.”
JLL executives are courting other New York City retail brokers. Mr. Palmer declined to name names, but said there will be five to 10 retail broker hirings within the next 12 months.
Mr. Palmer said he did not know what would happen with Mr. Smith’s current client base, which includes Duane Reade and Walgreens as well as a large retail space on West 42nd Street.
As CO reported last November, Jeff Winick’s Winick Realty Group lost one of its biggest accounts, Duane Reade, to SRS Real Estate Partners. Mr. Smith and colleague Matthew Alexander were tapped to run the account for the pharmacy giant, a subsidiary of the Walgreen Company.
And on West 42nd Street, Mr. Smith was recently retained along with SRS colleague Mark Kapnick by The Moinian Group to market the 70,000-square-foot retail box at Sky at 605 West 42nd Street, which occupies the entire block front on 11th Avenue between West 42nd and West 43rd Streets.
SRS has more than 20 offices and got its start as Staubach Company in 1986. Two years later, Mr. Smith joined the firm. The bulk of his work is on the agency side with 25 percent of his focus on tenant rep.
“His reputation with the owners and his agency business is flawless,” Mr. Palmer said. “Everyone single one of his clients, to our knowledge, has only positive things to say about him.”
Mr. Smith was on a plane and wasn’t available to provide comment.
