Mohr Partners, a global corporate real estate advisory services firm, has tapped a 25-year commercial real estate veteran to lead its office serving greater Charlotte, North Carolina, one of the nation's fastest-growing cities.
Dallas-based Mohr is set to announce Monday that Jill Ecuyer, who previously served as a senior associate at retail leasing, property management and investment sales firm Crossman & Co., has been named managing partner to oversee the Charlotte region, Chairman and CEO Robert Shibuya said.
"Charlotte is a key growth market for us as we have several global corporate clients with space requirements in the Greater Charlotte area," Shibuya said in an email. Shibuya said Mohr looks "forward to achieving new milestones" under Ecuyer's leadership as the brokerage expands in North Carolina's largest city.
Mohr Partners said it sees an opportunity in Charlotte because of its growing population and position as an important hub for office and industrial tenants that include many of its clients. Charlotte is known as a financial hub and is home to large banks, including Bank of America and Truist.
In 2022, Charlotte ranked as the fifth fastest-growing city in the country based on it adding 15,217 new residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. With a population of 897,720, Charlotte ranks as the 15th-largest city in the country.
Like most other large cities, Charlotte is facing challenges when it comes to its office market. The immediate outlook for the market shows signs of a further slowdown, according to a CoStar Market Analytics report.
"While market observers remain upbeat on the long-term prospects of this Sun Belt market, the increasing likelihood of short-term sluggishness is the consensus view," according to the report. "Despite office-using employment growth, a handful of long-anticipated move-outs and consolidations pushed vacancies up by nearly 200 basis points to 13.3%, as tenants vacated more than 1.3 million [square feet] in 2023, the steepest negative annual absorption on record for the market."
As for Ecuyer, she said in a statement that she is ready "to lead this market to new heights."
While at Crossman, she specialized in the leasing of neighborhood, community and power centers. She oversaw leasing strategies of shopping centers containing more than 2 million square feet of space, including a portfolio of Publix-owned properties.
Ecuyer also worked as a director for Newmark for seven years and served as a senior marketing representative at Spectrum and as director of leasing for The Harris Group, now known as Lincoln Harris CSG.