Evan Makovsky is taking advantage of the down economy to beef up his commercial real estate company’s brokerage business.
After bringing on 30-year industry veteran Evan Kline in March from Sturm Realty Group, Makovsky has hired four more brokers at Shames Makovsky Realty Co. Darrin Revious, Todd Silverman, Colleen Minde and Ryan Young all left Frederick Ross Co. to join the 38-year-old boutique firm.
“When everything is going well, no one ever thinks about doing anything different,” Makovsky said. “It’s when the world is in the middle of change that people are always looking to better themselves and become more secure.”
The addition of the former Ross team gives Shames Makovsky 11 brokers. In the coming months, it plans to hire another 16 people. Brokers represent buyers and sellers and tenants and landlords in real estate transactions.
The economic climate has a number of brokers seeking new opportunities in commercial real estate. Four industrial brokers recently left Cushman & Wakefield of Colorado for Jones Lang LaSalle: Mitchell Zatz, Dawn McCombs, Carmon Hicks and Drew McManus. Steve Rahe left CB Richard Ellis for Grubb & Ellis Co.
Tom Lee, senior managing director of Frederick Ross, said Revious and his team will be missed.
“They’re great people,” Lee said. “I consider Darrin to be a very good friend, and I wish him the best. Darrin’s niche is downtown, and he’s really good at it. I think he’s got a great opportunity with Evan Makovsky. That’s where Evan Makovsky does a lot of investments.”
Kline spent 26 years at Frederick Ross, including 15 years running the brokerage firm. He said he’s confident in the new team’s ability. Kline is running the brokerage business at Shames Makovsky.
Joining Shames Makovsky gives brokers the opportunity to create wealth by investing in the company’s development projects. That’s a perk most other brokerage firms don’t offer, and Revious said it’s one of the reasons he and his team found the company attractive.
“We’re trying to create an environment for people to be in a position to move forward no matter what kind of world we’re in,” Makovsky said. “We’re spending as much time focusing on what it’s going to be like when it comes back around as on what it is today because we know it’s not going to be that way forever.”
The company also hired Elevated Third, a Denver-based website design consultant, to redesign its logo and website.
“We wanted to revitalize the brand and modernize the image but not lose what got us here,” Kline said. “The challenge in new branding is it’s such a great name. We wanted to retain the roots.”
Shames Makovsky started as brokerage firm, but by the late 1980s, when the economy tanked and banks wouldn’t loan small businesses money to buy real estate, Makovsky started a mortgage division. Using personal funds and investments from family and friends, the company started making loans to businesses that owned or wanted to buy their properties.
By the early 1990s, when the loans were being repaid, the investors said they were more interested in owning investment properties, so Makovsky started buying real estate and leasing it on their behalf.
He got into the development business in 1997 when he couldn’t find properties he wanted to invest in.
Among the company’s most recent projects is redevelopment of what is now known as the Sage Building on the 16th Street Mall at Welton Street.
Makovsky also has assembled 75,000 square feet of property along California Street. Initially, he had planned to spend about $350 million developing 1 million square feet of offices, residences and hotel rooms on the site, but the economy has him rethinking his strategy.
“This is a time when you do a lot of planning and planting but not a lot of building,” Makovsky said. “We are not as clear today (about the project) as we once thought we were.”
Margaret Jackson: 303-954-1473 or mjackson@denverpost.com
