Highly regarded industry veteran becomes Principal, will help lead and grow firm’s industrial practice in Cook County and labor-related markets

Editors/Reporters

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Chicago, IL – Danny Nikitas, Avison Young Principal and Managing Director of the company’s Chicago region, announced today the strategic hiring of highly regarded industry veteran Steven Kohn.

Effective immediately, Kohn becomes a Principal of Avison Young with a mandate to help lead and grow the firm’s industrial real estate brokerage practice in Cook County and labor-related markets across Chicagoland. Based in the company’s suburban Chicago office in Rosemont, IL, he will continue to specialize in property transactions, including lease negotiations, landlord and tenant representation, acquisitions and dispositions.

Kohn brings 22 years of commercial real estate brokerage experience in Chicago to Avison Young, most recently as an executive vice-president with Colliers International.

Avison Young is the world’s fastest-growing commercial real estate services firm. Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, Avison Young is a collaborative, global firm owned and operated by its Principals. Founded in 1978, with legacies dating back more than 200 years, the company comprises approximately 5,000 real estate professionals in 120 offices in 20 countries. The firm’s experts provide value-added, client-centric investment sales, leasing, advisory, management and financing services to clients across the office, retail, industrial, multi-family and hospitality sectors.

“We are very excited to have Steve join Avison Young and help us enhance our industrial client-service capabilities,” comments Nikitas. “Steve is a professional with a great work ethic and impeccable integrity. He sticks to it until the deal gets done. He will play an instrumental role in leading and expanding our rapidly growing industrial brokerage practice in Cook County and throughout Chicagoland.”

Nikitas continues: “Steve’s relentless energy level and high profile are exceptional. He is a standout industrial broker in Cook County. He has a proven track record of helping large retailers – particularly with industrial properties designed to enhance last-mile delivery services – and multinational corporations, as well as Chicago-area manufacturers, distributors, tenants, landlords and land owners. Furthermore, his dedication to client-centric service, collaboration and community involvement make him an ideal fit for Avison Young’s culture.”

During his career, Kohn has negotiated sales and leasing transactions spanning more than 26 million square feet of industrial space and assisted clients with obtaining more than $30 million worth of tax incentives. In the process, he has represented a large array of institutional investors, corporate users and local companies, including: CenterPoint, Panattoni, Clarius Partners, Ardagh, The Home Depot, United Business Mail, Advance Electrical Supply and the Cook County Land Bank Authority.

Kohn is active in the industry as a member of the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors (SIOR) and Association of Industrial Real Estate Brokers (AIRE). He has also won the NAIOP Chicago chapter’s Broker Transaction of the Year award in back-to-back years (2011, 2012) and has received the SIOR Chicago chapter’s 2012 award for the largest industrial dollar volume transaction.

“I’m excited to join Avison Young. I feel as though I have jumped on a rocket ship,” says Kohn, referring to the company’s recent rapid growth. “I look forward to being part of the Principal-led culture and assisting more clients in such areas as site selection, incentive procurement, labor studies, union-penetration analysis, lease negotiation, lease renegotiation, lease buyouts, capital-market advisory services and investment sales. I also look forward to collaborating with my new colleagues across the company as we provide clients with optimal solutions for their properties and their businesses.”

In the community, Kohn coaches youth hockey. Prior to entering the real estate industry, he was the co-publisher of The Blue Line game program, which was sold outside Chicago Stadium and the United Center. He holds a Master of Business Administration degree in finance from Roosevelt University and a Bachelor of Science degree in finance from the University of Colorado, Boulder.