https://www.bizjournals.com/st…
7:59pm EDT
One of St. Louis’ largest commercial real estate firms is expanding into multifamily development.
Clayton-based Sansone Group has hired Dan Thies as national director of multifamily development, with plans to work on ground-up apartment complex projects in Missouri and across the nation.
Thies has more than 15 years of experience in the real estate industry, serving as the president of Thies Group Inc. since 2015 and as director of development for Brinkmann Constructors for a decade before that.
Over the years, Sansone Group has transitioned from a small brokerage firm to a real estate investment, development and management company with about 330 employees and more than 40 million square feet of commercial space in 19 states. In a push for nationwide expansion over the past two years, the company has opened new offices in nine cities, focusing on new industrial development. The company manages 150 properties totaling around 15 million square feet with an asset value of $1.5 billion, and has a brokerage team that brings in over $210 million in annual transactions. The existing multifamily division oversees 8,200 residential units.
The company’s late founder, Anthony Sansone Sr., developed multifamily in the past but multifamily development had not been a focus of the company for many years, and those projects have been sold, said Doug Sansone, who serves as a principal in the firm along with his brothers Jim, Nick and Tim.
In multifamily, the company will start with one project at a time and primarily look for ground-up projects to build, but could potentially buy existing apartment complexes for value-add projects, Doug Sansone said. The goal is seeking out growth, and multifamily has been a key growth sector in many cities across the country.
“We saw in the multifamily side an opportunity for us — the multifamily sector is doing very, very well at this time and we are a full service company, and this was one area that we were not involved in that we thought is a great opportunity to continue our expansion and our growth,” said Sansone.
If all goes well, the company could be working on three multifamily projects this year, potentially in Missouri but also looking elsewhere just as the company has on the industrial side, the developer said.
“We are doing industrial development everywhere from the East Coast to the West Coast, so we’ve taken that model and applied that to the multifamily sector,” Sansone said. “And we feel we’ll have equally as good success. It’s just going to develop organically and we’ll see how it goes.”
