Houston industrial team leaves Savills for CBRE

Courtesy of CBRE

Grant Hortenstine and Pearce Martens

CBRE has hired Grant Hortenstine, Thomas Berry, Pearce Martens and Jeff Wood to join its Houston industrial and logistics group.

Hortenstine will serve as senior vice president, while Berry, Martens and Wood will serve as vice presidents. The team comes from Savills Industrial, where it has completed transactions valued at more than $240 million since 2020, according to a press release.

A notable deal for Hortenstine and Martens was TigerHawk Logistics’ 135,000-square-foot lease late last year at Portside Logistics Center, Stream Realty’s 1 million-square-foot industrial facility in Baytown.

“The addition of Grant, Thomas, Pearce and Jeff is a tremendous complement to our existing industrial team and expands our reach in the Gulf Coast,” Peter Mainguy, senior managing director in CBRE’s Houston office, said in a statement Press. “Their dynamic and energetic approach to business, combined with CBRE’s extensive platform, will provide an effective formula for winning new business and growing our market share.”

Hortenstine has 10 years of experience in commercial real estate and was responsible for transactions totaling 1.2 million square feet in 2023, CBRE said. He has been executive managing director at Savills Industrial since 2020.

Berry has five years’ experience and began his career at Avison Young in 2019. He was a managing director at Savills Industrial.

Martens began working in commercial real estate in 2021 after working for Marathon Oil Corp., managing onshore assets. Wood joined the commercial real estate industry in 2020 after working as a senior analyst for a business tax consultancy. Both were associate directors at Savills.

The Houston industrial market saw 4.4 million square feet of absorption in the first quarter, while 6.3 million square feet of industrial products were delivered, according to CBRE.

Another 41 projects totaling 12.2 million square feet are under construction, of which approximately 3.8 million square feet are pre-leased. The new deliveries pushed industrial vacancy and availability rates up to 6.3% and 8.3%, respectively.

There has been a slowdown in construction, but about 2.9 million square feet of product was started last quarter, according to the CBRE report.

Other Houston-area CRE team moves this year include former pros Avison Young, Tommy LeBlanc, Thomas Monaghan, John-Michael Kamel, Blake Steele and Elizabeth Riley moving to MLB Commercial Real Estate .