There’s a new beacon in Boston’s commercial real estate industry, but it has nothing to do with the Leventhals.

As Alan M. Leventhal continues the tradition of real estate ownership and development at Beacon Capital Partners, playing off his family’s venerable Beacon Cos. name, three former Intercontinental Cos. professionals have launched their own firm, one dubbed Cresset Partners.

A cresset, company founder Edward Nardi explained last week, is an iron vessel or basket used for holding an illuminant such as oil. Symbolically speaking, Cresset Partners will attempt to light the way for investors and third-party clients through a variety of real estate deals, with a focus on value-added development.

“Boston is an attractive market,” Nardi said in an interview at Cresset’s offices in South Boston’s Fort Point Channel district. “We know there is a lot of money in the market, and people are looking for local development expertise to help them [identify] and pursue opportunities.”

Nardi, William G. Curtis V, and John Young were all considered integral cogs in the success of the Intercontinental Cos., a second-generation firm which has been among the most active investment and development companies of the 1990s. Owned by the Palandjian family, Intercontinental currently has a variety of office and hotel projects underway throughout Greater Boston.

Nardi said the timing of the three departures was merely coincidental and not reflective of mass animosity toward Intercontinental, where he had worked since 1983. Nardi had planned to pursue equity partners and development deals on his own, but when he learned Young and Curtis had similar plans to strike out on their own, the trio decided to collaborate.

“It was a great experience at Intercontinental, but it just seemed to me like an appropriate time for a change,” Nardi said. One bonus of the three working together, he said, is that each brings different areas of expertise to the table. Young, for example, is both a savvy technical expert and has a master’s degree in accounting. At Intercontinental, according to Nardi, Young put together debt packages and reported to investors in the company’s private opportunity funds. He has also developed software that helps analyze the financial aspects of a property.

Curtis, meanwhile, “has a lot of strengths in the acquisition side and a great grounding in the development process,” said Nardi, adding that Curtis’ role at Cresset will be to interact with institutional lenders and help market the company using his personal skills. The growth of Intercontinental was a partial reason for his departure, Curtis added, given that he feared it would limit his range of duties.

“I prefer an entrepreneurial company, something small where I get to wear a lot of different hats,” said Curtis, noting that he had never worked for someone else prior to joining Intercontinental five years ago.

Besides confidence in their own abilities, Young and Curtis said they are even more assuaged by the prospect of working with Nardi, who served as president of Intercontinental prior to his departure.

“Ed is unusual from my perspective in that there are not a lot of guys out there who has as much expertise as he does,” Curtis said. “It’s a ground-up business, and he has done 40 or 50 buildings from the ground up during his time.”

‘Good Opportunities’
Organized into three different entities, Cresset Development, Cresset Builders and Cresset Management, the company will offer a wide variety of expertise, including construction oversight, acquisitions and property management, both for their own buildings and on a third-party basis.

Being a fledgling startup could play to the firm’s advantage, Nardi maintains, especially for smaller portfolios whose owners are looking for personal service and attention.

“They don’t want to become just another number in the Rolodex,” Nardi said. “It will be much more meaningful to us, so they know they will get the service.”

On the acquisition front, Cresset is currently looking at about a half-dozen deals, Curtis said, with possibilities including the conversion of a small office building into residential use and renovation of a warehouse as telecom space. The firm, which will look at deals in the $10 million to $50 million range, has three offers out right now, he added, although the principals declined to identify those deals.

Nardi said he believes one of the strong suits of the company is the ability to quickly assess a property, uncovering its possibilities – and pitfalls – without extensive delays.

“I think it gives people comfort that we understand the business,” Nardi said. “We don’t have to waste a lot of time, and that’s important in this market.”

With nearly 50 years experience between the three, Nardi and his colleagues expressed confidence that they will be able to nurture Cresset into a successful operation. The key, Curtis said, is “to grow the company one building at a time,” and to do so in a measured, calculating manner. With the interest in the region, there are an increasing number of buyers chasing investment properties, and Nardi said Cresset will be diligent to ensure it does not get caught up in a bidding war just for the sake of securing a deal.

“There are still good opportunities out there, but it is getting harder to find them,” Nardi said, adding that the firm is also cognizant of the long boom period which Boston has enjoyed. “We look at the upside, but we also focus on the ‘what ifs?'”