Interra Realty, a Chicago-based commercial real estate investment services firm, announced it has promoted Craig Martin to managing partner, from director. In addition, the firm as hired Eric Biel as office manager.
“Craig joined Interra just two years after we launched and has made a significant contribution to our business ever since he walked through our doors,” said David Goss, co-founder and managing principal of Interra Realty. “With the depth of his financial expertise and understanding of Chicago’s commercial real estate market, Craig will have an even greater impact at Interra as managing partner.”
Since joining Interra in 2012, Martin has been involved in $100 million worth of transactions, including the recent $16.5 million sale of the 44-unit Broadway Apartments and an adjacent property in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. In addition to Uptown, he specializes in other North Side neighborhoods including Edgewater, where he has completed $25 million in sales in the past 12 months, as well as Andersonville, Rogers Park, Ravenswood and Lincoln Square.
Before joining Interra, Martin worked in asset management and financial reporting at GEM Realty Capital and, previously, in auditing in the real estate practice group at Ernst & Young. A graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting, Martin is a certified public accountant and licensed real estate broker in Illinois.
“Having come to Interra from the private equity side of the business, I appreciate how the culture at Interra created an easy transition to sales,” said Martin. “The firm’s entrepreneurial spirit gave me the freedom and flexibility to build on my past experience in real estate, which has been an important factor in my growth and success as a broker.”
Prior to joining Interra Realty, Biel held office management and operations roles in the publishing and technology industries, after a career as a sound engineer working for theaters in New York. He is a graduate of New York University.
Interra Realty has added several new staff over the past year in the areas of management, brokerage and marketing, prompting the firm to expand into a new headquarters office in Chicago’s River North neighborhood at the end of last year. In 2017, the firm’s transactions grew 104 percent and began this year on track to double sales volume by the end of 2018.
