Jim joined Avison Young’s Chicago office in 2014 as a Principal of the firm.  Working within the Capital Markets Group and Development Group, he brings 30 years of capital markets, structured finance and development experience to Avison Young, including over $5 billion of closed investment sale, financing, sale-leaseback, development capitalization and strategic advisory assignments.

Jim’s extensive real estate experience, including deep relationships with capital sources representing the full spectrum of the capital stack, allows him to provide valuable insight into the execution of transactions for Avison Young clients.  Since joining the Chicago office, Jim has assisted clients in completing a variety of transactions.  These include creating a leading practice to advise condominium boards of directors of the emerging opportunities afforded by Section 15 deconversion transactions.  Jim has also advised clients on recapitalizing office assets, sourced general partner and limited partner equity for development transactions, arranged construction financing for new developments and brokered the sale of office building assets.

Prior to joining Avison Young, Jim was a Principal at Chicago-based real estate developer Mesa Development. At Mesa, Jim was responsible for all capital structuring activities related to the almost $1 billion of urban, mixed-use, residential development completed during his tenure. Jim identified and structured approximately $700 million of senior construction financing, $125 million of mezzanine financing and $80 million of institutional co-investment equity capital.

Jim began his real estate career at Jones Lang LaSalle, where he completed his tenure as a Managing Director in the Capital Markets Group. Based in the firm’s Chicago headquarters, he oversaw all capital markets activities in the central region of the US, including asset dispositions and financings, structured corporate finance transactions and other financial advisory assignments on behalf of clients that included domestic and foreign corporations, developers, REITs, real estate fund operators and institutions.

Under Jim’s guidance, the JLL investment sales team grew to have the greatest market share of Class A office sales in Chicago, with more than 12 million square feet of office assets and over 3.6 million square feet of retail assets, as well as completing various advisory assignments including:  the disposition of a portfolio of participation interests in non-performing mortgage loans; providing strategic alternatives for recapitalizing a $1.2 billion portfolio of leveraged lease assets; and the privatization of a $110 million capitalization publicly-traded REIT.

Jim was also responsible for expanding the Capital Markets Group’s activities into secondary Midwest markets, such as Kansas City, St. Louis, Indianapolis and Detroit, as well as advising US-based multinationals on real estate financing structures and strategies available in Europe, Asia and the US.