Danny Nikitas, Avison Young Principal and Managing Director of the company’s Chicago office, announced the strategic hiring of industry veteran Tim Henry as a principal in the firm’s Chicago office.
He will provide retail advisory services to clients in the greater Chicago area, as well as lead Avison Young’s local retail effort and contribute to the firm’s global retail service platform. He was most recently Senior Vice-President and Chicago Market Leader with SRS Real Estate Partners.
“Tim brings experience representing both tenants and landlords in retail transactions, developing retail product, and working in retail e-commerce,” comments Nikitas. “He is a long-time member of the Chicago real estate community and also a great civic presence. We are very excited to have him on board and eager for him to carry the Avison Young name in the retail world.”
Avison Young opened its first U.S. office in Chicago in January 2009 and has expanded steadily in the local marketplace and Midwest region ever since. With the addition of Henry, says Nikitas, the firm is poised to further expand its retail footprint in Chicago and the Midwest while providing a higher level of service to clients nationally and internationally.
Henry brings to Avison Young more than 25 years of experience in commercial real estate, e-commerce, sales and marketing, and integrated workplace management systems (IWMS) experience to Avison Young. During his career, he has completed more than 250 commercial real estate transactions on behalf of retailers, corporations, REITs, IT professionals and branded manufacturers.
Henry’s notable achievements, while at SRS Real Estate Partners, included acting as the exclusive leasing agent for the Streets of Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, IL totaling 713,000 square feet (sf). He also served as the exclusive leasing agent and marketing consultant for Ford City Mall in Chicago, which spans 1.2 million square feet. Henry also acted for such prestigious clients as iStar Financial, Chase Bank, AT&T, Dunkin Donuts, Jos A Banks, Kemper Sports Management and The Fresh Market in Metro Chicago.
Before moving to SRS, Henry served as a partner with Highview Partners, a property developer in Chicago, where he successfully completed the largest retail real estate transaction in the North Shore submarket in 2010; represented a landlord who was repositioning a former, stand-alone Super GAP store into a long-term, high-rent-paying AT&T regional service center (11,000 sf); received a 2008 NAIOP Suburban Office Deal of the Year nomination for representing Fenwal, Inc. on its relocation to a new 174,000-sf headquarters location in Long Grove, IL; and initiated five mixed-use development projects.
Henry was also the founding principal of the industry’s first commercially available lease administration system and consulting company, National Facilities Group, which developed commercial real estate lease administration software (SLIM) – the foundation of cloud-based, IWMS technology available today. Henry is an active member of NAIOP and the International Council of Shopping Centers in Chicago.
“I am extremely excited to be collaborating with my new colleagues across the company to further grow the firm’s retail services platform, and to be part of this outstanding, Principal-led culture,” says Henry. “Avison Young offers a truly innovative approach to retail services whereby the resources of this fast-growing firm are accessible to and focused around the client, which presents an excellent opportunity for me, my partners and my clients.”