Minneapolis-based Ackerberg Group decided to pass most of its property management business to Welsh and Colliers International to focus more on growing the firm's portfolio.
As part of the change, nine Ackerberg staffers were hired by Welsh to continue to work on their properties and another handful moved on to other firms with the help of Ackerberg earlier this month. Ackerberg currently has about 30 employees.
"We realized that the property management business is something that's nice but not necessary … We could be better partnering with Welsh then we could do on our own," Chief Executive Stuart Ackerberg said.
He said he wanted to spend more of the company's time on investments and developments.
Ackerberg has always had some form of property management as part of its services since Norman Ackerberg, Stuart's father, started the firm in the 1960s as Norman Construction Co. By the mid-1990s, property management was a large part of the company, which ranked as the seventh-largest manager in the Twin Cities market.
Stuart Ackerberg said he thought the firm needed to be realigned to concentrate more on quality rather than quantity of projects. Ackerberg sold some of its accessory accounts, including the brokerage and property management divisions to Welsh. Over the years as Ackerberg has continued to acquire new properties, it has slowly began to manage its properties again.
Welsh manages about 20 million square feet of space and will get another 1 million from the Ackerberg portfolio. Welsh will help with the day-to-day management of the properties while Ackerberg will still be involved in terms of long-term planning, leasing and design.
Some of Ackerberg's newer projects included the Miller Textile Building in northeast Minneapolis and The Finn apartment building that will open in St. Paul's Highland Park in the summer.
