Team Effort Delivers Deals in West Los Angeles

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The Business Journal salutes industry standouts for bringing welcome relief to the hospitality sector.

BEST MIDSIZE BROKER

Brad Conroy, 33

President, Conroy Commercial

As founder and president of Conroy Commercial, Brad Conroy has spent the last decade of his life working on real estate deals worth millions of dollars.

Now, just 33, the Brentwood native leads a team of 10 people who focus on retail investment sales, leasing and property management in West L.A.’s restaurant sector.

A former star football player at Brentwood High School, Conroy fittingly and adamantly asserts that his success comes mostly because of his “team” and not just himself.

“I just love what I do,” Conroy says. “I love Los Angeles. I love being able to bring about positive change with a new building or refashioning an old one and getting to meet the people behind great businesses and great architecture.”

Among the deals he’s worked on is one for Pizza Rustica, a Miami company hoping to extend its reach in trendy areas in California. Conroy was directly involved in getting the chain its first West Hollywood location along Santa Monica Boulevard. He also nailed down a Beverly Boulevard location, near the Beverly Center, for Venice furniture store Plushpod.

Heather Stotland, who manages acquisitions and leasing for American Commercial, said her Malibu real estate firm has closed four deals in the last few years and are about to close on an additional three with Conroy.

“While he’s done a great job with restaurants, what I can say about Conroy and Conroy Commercial is that they have versatility because they have handled all kinds and sizes of deals,” she said.

Conroy recently helped client Peter Gary Taschjian of GBT Co. attract a new tenant to fill out a 10,000-square-foot space near the Beverly Center. Conroy brokered a deal that is bringing in an eatery serving Argentinean empanadas, L’Empanadas Della Nonna.

“Brad is a diligent guy,” Taschjian said. “He’s always in the mix and gets us in there, too.”

Conroy went east for college, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in history from New York’s Columbia University in 1999. He moved back to Los Angeles and worked for Ticketmaster and CitySearch.com before joining the marketing team of an online tool seller.

Inspired by his late father’s own business, floral shop chain Conroy’s Flowers, he decided to get into real estate and landed a job at brokerage Marcus & Millichap. He climbed up to senior agent and started his firm as a side project, but branched off in 2006 to a fully independent operation.

Since then, he and his team have sold nearly 20 properties on La Brea Boulevard, Wilshire Boulevard and Melrose Avenue. He’s also leased or sold six restaurants on South Beverly Drive in the last 12 months, in addition to a dozen other restaurants in West Los Angeles in the last few years.

Recently, Conroy got a taste of the commercial real estate market as a tenant, as a fire unexpectedly destroyed his brokerage’s Beverly Hills office. He ended up setting up shop on South Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills in a 3,000-square-foot office. The experience echoed his firm’s beginnings in 2006.

“Just the little things like setting up utilities took me back to starting from scratch, but we were able to rebuild quickly,” Conroy said. “But when you love what you do, you find a way to go on, so we did and are doing quite well.”

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