Kevin Shannon

But then it’s difficult to argue the point when you look at some of the deals that Shannon and his team have closed: Clarion Partners scooping up a 70 percent stake in a trophy life sciences property at 400 Dexter in Seattle from Alexandria Real Estate for a whopping $364 million; Brookfield’s massive incursion into studio space with its DreamWorks Animation acquisition for $327 million; the $146 million trade of Sorrento Towers, an office in San Diego, from Shorenstein to the Singapore-based Prime US REIT; and Glen Bell Way, a research and development campus in Orange County from LBA Realty to the Taiwan-based Skyline Group International.

“We’ve expanded the amount of industrial we do,” Shannon said. “That’s been tremendous right now.” (Oh, yeah—in October, he traded 400 National Way, an Amazon-occupied warehouse from Greenlaw Partners to Westbrook Partners for $128 million. That was an 800 percent increase from what the Simi Valley property sold for in 2020!)

The Pasadena-born Shannon who has four children all in college (it’s a good thing he’s having such a stellar year!) has been hooked on real estate ever since he wandered into restaurant and developer Rocky Tarantello’s class at University of Southern California. “He was just a legendary professor at USC — and his passion translated at least to this student,” Shannon said. 

Shannon worked in the business for years, finishing a run at CBRE when he was approached about heading Newmark’s West Coast capital markets group in 2016. Since joining Newmark, Shannon said he has helped make his team “one of the top three in the country in terms of investments in five years.”

And, while it might be difficult to match what Shannon’s team did in 2021, there is a lot to be optimistic about in Shannon’s future: He currently has a $1.3 billion industrial assignment on the West Coast, and an $800 million campus in Seattle for Google on his plate. — M.G.