Jim Kerrigan, David Horowitz Join Avison Young

Data center real estate veterans Jim Kerrigan and David Horowitz have joined Avison Young’s brokerage operations in Chicago, the company said today. Kerrigan and Horowitz have joined Avison Young as Principals and will lead the company’s data center specialty efforts.

Avison Young is Canada's largest independently-owned commercial real estate services company. Headquartered in Toronto, the company has more than 800 real estate professionals in 26 offices across Canada and the U.S.

Kerrigan and Horowitz join Avison Young after spending eight years together at The Staubach Company, and most recently at Grubb & Ellis where they led the formation of the Data Center Group. Kerrigan and Horowitz have assisted clients including Citigroup, Server Central, Dupont Fabros, Equinix, Fidelity Information Systems, United Airlines, Servint and CyrusOne.

“The addition of Jim and David to the Avison Young team shows our firm’s continued commitment to client service through superior expertise,” said Michael McKiernan, Avison Young Principal and Managing Director of the company’s Chicago office. “Jim and David’s expertise in mission critical facilities allows Avison Young’s clients to tap into some of the best experience in America on protecting intellectual capital. For our clients, downtime could be the difference between solvency and bankruptcy.

“More than 50 percent of companies run out of space due to power and cooling constrictions that could easily be avoided with the proper real estate strategy," McKiernan added. "Jim and David understand that the approach to data center planning has little to do with square footage and everything to do with the proper planning for racks and kilowatts.”

During the last several years, Kerrigan has completed more than 3 million square feet worth of data center transactions and worked on more than $150 million in private equity transactions and $75 million in investor banking transactions. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Illinois. He is a member of the Chicago Office Leasing Brokers Association (COLBA), and has served as a board member of 7x24 Exchange (Lake Michigan Region) and Beacon Therapeutic School, a not-for-profit corporation that promotes the welfare of children with severe emotional problems.

“I am pleased to be joining a forward-thinking company such as Avison Young, and to be delivering this service option during the company’s unprecedented period of expansion,” said Kerrigan. "“The consolidation of our competitors into publicly-traded entities has eliminated options for clients seeking knowledge and advice from privately-held real estate consultancies. We understand client concerns across Canada and the U.S. and can help create individualized solutions.”

Horowitz has successfully completed more than 100 megawatts of data center transactions during the last eight years, representing some of the largest technology companies in the world. His specialties include site-selection for colocation and wholesale data centers, lease/license negotiations, acquisitions and dispositions, power and fiber analysis, strategic planning, financial analysis, and real estate tax analysis.

Horowitz holds a business communications degree from the University of Kansas and is also a member of the Healthy Schools Campaign finance committee and a founding member of the Illinois Holocaust Museum. “To become a Principal in such a dynamic, growing company as Avison Young represents a significant opportunity for me at this point in my career,” said Horowitz.