Broker Spotlight: Bill Stevens

Broker Spotlight: Bill Stevens

For broker Bill Stevens, it is all about Cleveland. As the city’s self-proclaimed “biggest cheerleader,” joining Cushman & Wakefield | CRESCO Real Estate just made sense.

“I’m the biggest cheerleader there is for Cleveland, my siblings are sick of hearing about what came from Cleveland, and who was born in Cleveland…” he said. “My line is that Clevelanders don’t know how good Cleveland is. I’ve lived all over the United States, I moved every two years of my life up until high school. I lived overseas, I lived on the East Coast, in the South, all over, and Cleveland has it all.”

And Bill would know, he has over twenty years of tenant and landlord representation experience in Northeast Ohio. In May of 2022, Bill joined Cushman & Wakefield | CRESCO Real Estate as a Vice President to help broaden the client base and bring greater depths of services.

Professional Background

For years, Bill’s father-in-law, Steve Joseph, pressured him to get into the commercial real estate business, but Bill resisted. After an opportunity came up where they could partner together, Bill relented and spent the first three years of his career learning from his mentor, Michael Gatto, as well as his father-in-law.

“Partnering with my father-in-law, we concentrated only on tenant representation, then went to Allegro, which was a consultancy group but again, only focused on tenant rep,” Bill said. “Then, the great recession hit, and a couple of the partners at Allegro split and asked me to come over with them to Crescendo. There, I did a total of 180 deals in 3 years time working for landlord representation, utilizing my tenant rep skills, and knowing that angle and what that side came from, I was able to put that to use.”

After three years at Crescendo, Bill spent nearly a decade at Colliers in Cleveland, serving a broader base of brokerage and property management clients.

In May, he joined the team at Cushman & Wakefield | CRESCO Real Estate.

“My intention was to get into a different line because of the great effect that the pandemic had on office leasing, I was really going to turn my back on office leasing, and do an about-face and do something different, but CRESCO provided such an amazing platform,” Bill said. “Often times in many of my roles in different places I’ve been, I’ve been kind of the lone wolf, the guy at the office who does this or that, and here I have such a deep bench of individuals I can go to, to seek advice, in order to partner with on projects, but the possibilities are endless here.”

Involvement

When Bill is not working or screaming his love for Cleveland from the rooftops – he is busy with his four (count ‘em, four) kids.

“I do quite a bit of sports with my four boys, but they’re getting to be the age where I’ve graduated from coaching,” he said.  “We do a lot of camping and travel. I enjoy reading and following my local rugby team. Really, if I’m not at my house, I’m watching a Cleveland team come to victory.”