Each year, Midwest Real Estate News inducts a new class into its Midwest Commercial Real Estate Hall of Fame. Here’s a look at one of our newest inductees, Adam Roth, executive vice president of NAI Hiffman in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois.
Adam Roth’s mastery of logistics and real estate is borne from his long history in the industry, his inquisitive nature, logical problem-solving approach and tireless work ethic.
Cutting his teeth in transportation and logistics as an LTL terminal supervisor at Roadway Express, the Ohio native made his ascent through the industry by overseeing Midwest business development with Transplace for four years before joining NAI Hiffman in 2005.
Roth’s focus with Hiffman has been providing real estate, transportation and supply chain solutions to distribution and warehouse companies throughout the world on matters including corporate relocation, site search analysis, build-to-suit alternatives, acquisition, disposition and leasing services. In his 19-year tenure at Hiffman, Roth has completed over 600 career lease and sales transactions valued at more than $6 billion. He became a Partner and Shareholder of NAI Hiffman in 2011.
“Each day and each deal are different,” Roth said. “I feel very fortunate to work within the ‘Chicago way’ of industrial real estate, enjoying the quality of people across the industry and having built relationships with developers, owners, tenants, competitors and the various levels of service providers.”
Roth conveys complexities of economic factors and supply chain with a logical, straightforward clarity, with projections and strategies informed by the latest statistics, legislation, trends and commerce.
“There was no way to foresee how much my previous career would impact my time as an industrial real estate broker, and this resulted in a tremendous fit with the timing of both the logistics and industrial real estate fields,” Roth said. “For over 20 years, I continue to attend supply chain tradeshows to identify trends that will impact the real estate sector; a relationship I like to call ‘The Rule of 1.5.'”
Roth’s wheelhouse is understanding and explaining the interconnected forces governing real estate: His “Rule of 1.5” stipulates that ripples caused by activity in transportation, trucking and retail reverberate in real estate markets a year-and-a-half later.
Roth lends his expertise to real estate periodicals, panels and speaking engagements with organizations such as WGN Radio Chicago, NAIOP, Will County Real Estate Forecast, DePaul University, Union Pacific RR, Elmhurst University, the Realty Club of Chicago and the REAL Professionals Network.
Since 2007, national commercial real estate and intermodal developer CenterPoint Properties has relied on Roth and colleague Dan Leahy as strategic partners and advisors on their largest capital investment, the 6,400-acre CenterPoint Intermodal Center. From bringing competitive brokerage firms and targeted users to the intermodal campus for lunch and helicopter tours to implementing a statistics-based model for potential users, the Roth/Leahy team’s marketing approach elevated the suburban Chicago industrial powerhouse as a major player for national and international clients.
Additionally, Roth serves as a director of NAI Global Logistics, a national strategic platform comprised of a network of logistics brokers.
Roth, his spouse Rita and their three children (Anderson and twins Henry and Hudson), dog (Hazel) and cat (Louis) reside in Elmhurst, Illinois. An avid sports fan, Roth’s favorite team is his hometown Cleveland Browns and he currently serves as the head coach for his twins’ 10U football team, the Elmhurst Eagles.
“I love reading to our twins,” Roth said. “We finished Harry Potter and Percy Jackson. Now we’re on Michael Vey.”
