Hunneman Commercial Co. officials celebrating the firm’s 75th anniversary include: (from left) Robert Tito, Carl Christie, F. Michael DiGiano, Wayne Spiegel, Stuart W. Pratt, David Ross (seated at left), Robert Fitzgerald, Emmet T. Logue (seated at right) and Steve James.

It is said that the more things change, the more they stay the same, and in the case of Boston’s real estate industry, one of the best adherents to that mantra would seem to be Hunneman Commercial Co. In celebrating the venerable operation’s 75th anniversary last week, CEO Stuart W. Pratt maintained that founder Carleton Hunneman’s work ethic and straightforward business approach laid a foundation still evident to this day.

“We have a group of very dedicated partners and a philosophy of entrepreneurship that has allowed us to compete in this market Â… and that is structurally the same way the company was run 75 years ago under Carleton Hunneman,” said Pratt, who actually worked with the legendary Hub real estate icon for a time upon joining the firm in 1971.

Even so, surviving to the new millennium was not always guaranteed for Hunneman, which Pratt took control of in the early 1980s, a few years after the company namesake retired. For a brief time, it seemed Hunneman’s commercial group might get swallowed up by NRT Corp., a national outfit which had bought out Pratt in 1998 to gain control of Hunneman’s massive residential brokerage network. After a spate of uncertainty, Pratt organized a buyout of the various commercial entities in 2000, including its brokerage, appraisal and property management divisions, then offered senior brokers and managers an opportunity to buy into the restructured entity, leading to the current lineup of nine principals.

According to Pratt, the buyout not only provided Hunneman the local, independent ownership which the company had been built upon, it mimicked Carelton Hunneman’s sale in the early 1980s that allowed his creation to continue on with a new generation. “I don’t want to see this firm die, and the best way to make sure that doesn’t happen is to bring in quality people who will take my place,” said Pratt, adding that the arrangement should also ensure solid service given that those assisting Hunneman clients have a stake in the company’s future.

Hunneman’s current group certainly has the acumen to service Boston’s commercial real estate sector, with such longtime staffers as Senior Vice Presidents Richard Lundgren and Mark Gottesman, industrial brokerage specialist Wayne Spiegel and Douglas Potter, president of the firm’s active property management operation. Under the guidance of financial expert Mark Hall, Hunneman will trade an estimated $300 million in troubled loans this year, Pratt estimated, while Executive Vice President Peter Benke, who served as president of Hunneman in the 1990s, now oversees the firm’s corporate services group and remains a valuable rainmaker in his own right.

Benke’s hands-on approach was evident earlier this year when he won three awards from Hunneman’s national affiliate, NAI, including the Industrial Best of Class award which recognizes the best producer in that category. On the investment front, Hunneman has dominated the middle market of late, employing the talents of such sales specialists as Robert Tito, David Ross and Carl Christie to consistently place near the top in number of transactions negotiated annually.

New Opportunities

Hunneman President F. Michael DiGiano credits a “bottom-up business development” strategy as one key for Hunneman’s recent growth, which Pratt said has seen annual revenues increase from between $3 million and $4 million when the buyout was made to an anticipated $20 million in revenues for 2004. Relying on the expertise of its staff on the ground, Hunneman is better able to recognize new trends and pursue emerging opportunities, said DiGiano, who has been with the firm since 1992.

“Being adaptable through the years and doing things that other firms have not put an emphasis on has been a big part of Hunneman’s success,” said DiGiano, whose own relationship with the firm was forged in the early 1980s when Hunneman became involved in a Peabody business park that DiGiano was working on for the city.

Responding to a slowdown in the commercial market, Hunneman began writing federal economic grants on behalf of communities in the late 1970s and early 1980s, not only generating business for itself, but also infusing local communities with new opportunities to attract companies. The urban redevelopment practice brought such firms as Hyde Athletics, SS Pierce, Reebok and General Dynamics to locations still occupied by them today, with communities assisted by that trend including Boston, Taunton, Revere and Stoughton.

Hunneman’s involvement in that arena continues today, with the firm currently serving as exclusive marketing agent for the 4,000-acre Devens Industrial Park in central Massachusetts and the Myles Standish Industrial Park in Taunton. The practice was just one of several notable ideas pursued by the firm over the years, whose history also includes helping on such milestone undertakings as the assemblage of land for Route 128 in the 1940s and 1950s, creation of Boston’s first condominium conversion in the Back Bay and Hunneman’s appointment in 1965 as development consultant, leasing agent and property manager of 225 Franklin St., the first high-rise office building in downtown Boston.

Despite the rich heritage, Pratt and DiGiano also cite several newcomers who have helped further bolster the firm’s full-service approach to real estate. Its downtown brokerage group has been aided by the arrival of such veteran players as James Adams and Robert Fitzgerald, for example, while DiGiano said another important piece of the puzzle was solved two years ago when broker Greg Larsen came aboard to beef up the company’s Cambridge presence. On the suburban front, the firm has such stalwarts as Lowell Peabody and Steve James, whom DiGiano said brings both “great ideas and a lot of energy.” The firm also has faith in such emerging stars as Ryan Weber and Brendan Carroll, added DiGiano, who said he believes the company is well-positioned for the future.

“We’re very happy with the progress we’ve made,” he said. “I think we have developed some new markets we weren’t in before, and we continue to be leaders in many of the markets we are active in.”

As with most others spoken with, however, DiGiano pointed to Pratt as the main reason the firm has survived in an oft-volatile environment. While the growth of the residential group into a major force that resulted in its $150 million sale in 1998 may prove to be Pratt’s greatest accomplishment, DiGiano said the company chairman and CEO has exemplified Yankee ingenuity in many other ways, including the very buyout that has brought the firm full circle 75 years after Carleton Hunneman got the ball rolling.

Pratt “is frequently the one who sees the new opportunities,” said DiGiano, adding that, “he enjoys the real estate business, and that really shows through.”