Jones Lang LaSalle opens new office.

Reflecting the firm's recently expanded focus on providing comprehensive corporate real estate services to New York City, the national and global markets, Jones Lang LaSalle is opening a Downtown Manhattan office at 2 World Financial Center.

To hit the ground running, the firm has recruited one of the city's premier leasing teams. Frank Cento, John Wheeler and Christopher Krantz (formerly of Cushman & Wakefield), who have represented such prominent names as Chase Manhattan Bank, Credit Lyonnais. General Electric, Crown Properties and the Paramount Group, will be heading up the new downtown office under New York president Peter Riguardi.

"While conventional wisdom may hold that the downtown Manhattan leasing market has cooled completely following 9/11 and the downward spiral of the financial markets, our experience has been quite the opposite," said Riguardi. "Jones Lang LaSalle is currently engaged in 32 million SF of project and facilities management assignments, 14 million of which was new business won after 9/11, and much of it is for downtown properties. The time to focus on the repositioning of downtown is now, before the market heats up again. So, we are strategically positioning our firm with a hand-selected team that has the contacts and experience to cross-sell our services to landlords, tenants and corporations."

"Jones Lang LaSalle's intensively client-focused platform is what attracted us, "said Cento. "Joining Jones Lang LaSalle is a means for us to practice our craft at its very pinnacle, with only the concern of what is absolutely best for the client. Here, we work with the industry's top talents and perform deals for both landlords and tenants. We can be more creative in structuring deals that provide comprehensive solutions to our clients' space issues and financial concerns. Furthermore, we are operating off a global platform that does not limit our range of service geographically. We can execute deals on behalf of clients Downtown, Uptown, in other states and even other countries. Jones Lang LaSalle provides a concentration of resources and expertise that just doesn't exist elsewhere in the market."

Jones Lang LaSalle recently won the entire Downtown management portfolio of Deutsche Gesellschaft Fur Immobilienfonds mBH (DEGI), one of the largest German real estate funds, which includes 67, 95 and 99 Wall St. The firm is also marketing 350,000 SF of space on behalf of Merrill Lynch at 2 World Financial Center and manages a downtown Manhattan portfolio totaling approximately 4.5 million SF.

Biographies of the new downtown Manhattan leasing team are as follows:

Frank A. Cento has more than 23 years' experience representing both landlords and tenants. Before joining Cushman & Wakefield, Cento was a senior director worked at Insignia/ESG for seven years. He is a member of the Real Estate Board of New York and serves as the organization's Chairman of Financial District Rental Conditions Committee.

John V. Wheeler has nearly 20 years' experience in tenant and landlord representation in Manhattan. Prior to his six years of service at Cushman & Wakefield, Wheeler served as regional director for LaSalle Partners, in which he oversaw the firm's 7.5 million-SF Downtown New York agency portfolio. Wheeler joined LaSalle following its merger with The Galbreath Company, for which he founded a Lower Manhattan office in 1990. Christopher Krantz has been a real estate advisor to leading financial services and investment advisory firms in Manhattan for more than five years. Prior to his four years at Cushman & Wakefield, Krantz was an analyst with LaSalle Partners, specializing in landlord representation. He is a member of the Real Estate Board of New York.