After several years away, star broker Aaron Kirman is making a return to the tumultuous world of Canon Drive in Beverly Hills. Only this time, he is bringing his entire team.
Pacific Union International’s Aaron Kirman Partners has gotten so large it will now be occupying its own office. Starting in June, the team of 44 agents and support staff, featuring a newly recruited two-person team from Compass, will be leaving Pacific Union’s office on Rodeo Drive to move into the firm’s other office on Canon Drive, The Real Deal has learned.
The 70 agents and staff working at Canon will be shifting to other Pacific Union offices to make room for Kirman’s team.
Bryce Lowe and Kirby Gillon, former Compass agents who were working on Sally Forster Jones’ team, will be joining Kirman at the new 6,500-square-foot office located at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Canon Drive. The new recruits are part of a group of 24 agents that was hired within the last year.
Kirman said the move will allow him to start hiring people off a “waiting list” to join his team. “This is a huge team, and I feel comfortable saying that we are the first team in L.A. to get their own office,” he said.
He insisted the move isn’t a precursor to him starting his own firm. “I don’t want my own brokerage, it’s just not for me,” he said.
For Canon Drive, once dubbed “Realtor Row” for its real estate sway, especially in the high-end luxury space, the Kirman move is the latest in a series of shifts by brokerages in recent years. Several newer firms are moving to nearby streets amid rising rents, and agents are increasingly seeking quieter, more secluded places to conduct business.
“Canon Drive can be a good and a bad,” Kirman, who worked there for over a decade with John Aaroe Group, said in March. “If you see 10 real estate agents as you’re having a lunch, it really can take a lot of time away from the intimacy.”
But Kirman said he’s excited to go to back his roots. “I embrace the visibility of being on Canon,” he said.
Meanwhile, the office at 150 S. Rodeo Drive will become Pacific Union’s Southern California headquarters. It will house about 160 agents and staff in nearly 14,000 square feet.
Smith & Berg, an 11-person team led by F. Ron Smith and David Berg, will move from Canon into their own 1,800-square-foot office in Brentwood. Smith was a founding member of Partners Trust, which Pacific Union acquired in August.
San Francisco-based Pacific Union, under the leadership of Mark McLaughlin, recently consolidated three local brokerages under its wing. In January, the firm rebranded John Aaroe Group, Gibson International and Partners Trust under the Pacific Union banner.
The firm has been on an expansion tear ever since. It recently beefed up its commercial team, hiring Tom Park’s two-person team and Elizabeth Clark’s nine-person team from BRC Advisors, a Sperry Commercial Global Affiliate. Combined, Pacific Union now has more than 1,700 real estate agents and staff, working out of 51 offices throughout Northern and Southern California.