Group of Harrison & Bates brokers joining Commonwealth Commercial

As a long-time real estate firm pares back its operations, a number of its brokers are swapping jerseys.

Commonwealth Commercial Partners LLC has hired five brokers away from Harrison & Bates, which announced this month plans to stop providing new transactional brokerage services to clients after May 31.

The Harrison & Bates brokers joining Commonwealth Commercial are David Williams, Chip Louthan, Bruce Milam, Steve Gentil and Kit Tyler. Colton Konvicka also is leaving Harrison & Bates to be a sales & leasing associate at Commonwealth Commercial.

Commonwealth Commercial founder and CEO Mark W. Claud says the new hires have a deep knowledge of the industrial sales and leasing market. Bringing them on was a way of expanding further into that arena, says Claud.

“We want to be a well-diversified company,” says Claud, who got his start with Harrison & Bates. “This essentially helps us round out our sales and leasing group.”

The new hires bring Commonwealth Commercial’s number of Virginia brokers to 30, all of whom are based in the company’s Richmond-area office at 4198 Cox Road in Glen Allen. The company also has an office in Virginia Beach at 208 Golden Oak Court and 11 other offices spread mostly across the Southeast.

Milam says that, among the nonnationally branded firms in the Richmond area, Commonwealth Commercial appears to be the largest. He says the level of support and collegiality at Commonwealth Commercial was appealing. It helps too that Commonwealth Commercial is home to former Harrison & Bates brokers.

“They’ve remained friends,” Milam says, adding the change has come as something of a relief. “Things change. You roll with it.”

The changes started rolling in the Virginia real estate scene late last year when CBRE Inc. and its Virginia affiliates agreed to cut ties.

The former CBRE Inc. affiliate was picked up by Colliers International, which had parted ways with its affiliates in Richmond and Norfolk. The Colliers affiliates rebranded as Harrison & Bates Inc., a brand that harkens back more than a century.