Commercial real estate services firm Avison Young has added the Honour Consulting team, scaling the firm’s real estate consulting offering in the Americas.
The move will see Jeff Estep, Todd Ohlandt, Matt Ryder and Rick Ybarra join Avison Young as principals, alongside a staff of 13. The data-driven firm was founded in 1999 in Atlanta by Estep, and supports clients with workplace intelligence; location strategy and incentives negotiation; real estate consulting; supply chain and distribution integration; and portfolio optimization.
The Honour team’s advisory process aligns operations, labor, technology, supply chain, and logistics with location planning to deliver real estate solutions that support long-term business strategy.
Honour previously partnered with commercial real estate services firm Cresa for four years, forming the company’s Cresa Consulting Group.
Together, Honour’s four leaders have more than 70 years of combined industry experience. Estep was previously a president and managing principal at real estate firm Newmark Knight Frank, and spent 16 years at UPS, where he was a Materials Management Manager.
Before joining Honour, Ohlandt was a director at Children’s Healthcare Atlanta (CHOA), a regional manager at industrial supplier McMaster-Carr, and a VP at Bear Stearns. Ryder was previously a strategy consultant at CHOA and a senior management director in consulting at Newmark Knight Frank. Ybarra previously was an executive in the real estate practice at Deloitte Consulting, and in the real estate practice at IT consultancy SAIC.
Avison Young’s acquisition of Honour expands the Americas consulting practice, which was recently launched by new hire Sheila Botting, a former Deloitte partner. The expanding practice includes offerings in corporate real estate advisory; workplace strategy; project management; transaction management; real estate & infrastructure advisory; and urban land planning & development advisory.
Covid-19 is reshaping the commercial real estate industry, as tenants contemplate switching to mostly remote workforces in the future, even as lockdowns lift. Meanwhile, many retailers and restaurants face an uncertain future. Commercial districts could face a huge decrease in demand as a result.
“Among the impacts of the rapidly changing Covid-19 pandemic is a re-imagining of how real estate can help solve for the evolving needs of people and business, and the consulting team joining us in the U.S. brings a depth of experience that will benefit clients as they navigate through today’s needs and tomorrow’s strategies,” said Mark Rose, chair and CEO of Avison Young. “This great team is part of how we are delivering an interdisciplinary service offering closely aligned with our transaction teams and our investments in technology and innovation that is unique in our industry.”
Based in Toronto, Avison Young was founded in 1978, and provides investment sales, leasing, management, financing, and advisory services to clients in the office, retail, industrial, multi-family, and hospitality sectors. The principal-owned firm has 5,000 employees in more than 100 offices in 14 countries.