Cushman & Wakefield has expanded Washington Managing Principal Alison Beddard’s role to include Oregon at a time when Portland’s property market is being hit by a record amount of subleases flooding the market.
She will oversee the firm’s business lines in the Portland market as managing principal in addition to her responsibilities she has held since January 2021 in managing Seattle and nearby Bellevue in the Puget Sound. That region is one of the most active commercial real estate markets in the United States.
Beddard, who started her career as an office broker with Cushman in 2005, now faces new challenges in Portland because of the glut of sublease space.
The amount of that space in Portland has jumped to 2.4 million square feet, or 2.1% of available stock, according to CoStar data. Historically, sublease space has accounted for only 0.8% of available offices in the Portland market.
“Thus, chief among concerns for stakeholders is the metro’s ability to work its way through the immense amount of sublease offerings on the market,” John Gillem, a director of CoStar Market Analytics, wrote in a recent report.
Also, tenants including Umpqua Bank, Unitus Community Credit Union and Portland General Electric, announced over the past year they will leave their downtown flagship offices.
However, Beddard said, Portland and Oregon are well positioned to attract new corporations and residents, and this would bode well for the state’s property market.
“Oregon is an alluring state for business/employment, residential and tourism, with greater Portland serving as a key economic engine and innovation hub for the state,” Beddard said in a statement.
Beddard is a “highly experienced and accomplished leader and has excelled in each market she has helped oversee at Cushman & Wakefield” who will be valuable in driving the brokerage’s growth across the Pacific Northwest, Dan Broderick, president of Cushman’s Americas Advisory, said in the statement.
Beddard, who graduated from Virginia Tech, was Cushman & Wakefield’s managing principal for Utah before taking over the same position in Washington in early 2021. She will continue to be based in Cushman’s Seattle office, reporting to Matt Chatham, Cushman & Wakefield’s Northwest regional president.
She began her career specializing in office leasing and property sales and acquisitions for institutional occupiers, private investors and nonprofits.
Beddard has also been recognized for community service and her work advancing women in the commercial real estate industry.
That background includes a stint in 2017 as president of Commercial Real Estate Women’s Network, or CREW, according to the Cushman statement.
