Thirty-seven years, three billion dollars in closed sales, 662 deals across 43 states, and a new flag planted downtown. Chris Maling joins Cushman & Wakefield as Executive Director, Retail Capital Markets, and LA retail investment just gained a new center of gravity.
When Cushman & Wakefield welcomed Chris Maling to its Downtown Los Angeles office as Executive Director, Retail Capital Markets, per the firm’s announcement, it added one of the most accomplished retail investment advisors on the West Coast. Maling arrives from Avison Young’s Downtown Los Angeles office, where he was a principal, carrying more than 37 years of commercial real estate experience, over $3 billion in closed sales, and 662 transactions spanning 43 states.
The specialty is as demanding as the numbers are large. Maling advises REITs, private equity groups, family offices, trusts, and high-net-worth individuals on the acquisition and disposition of shopping centers and single-tenant net lease properties across Southern California and the Southwest. And he works the hardest corners of the discipline: complex transactions involving 1031 exchanges, bankruptcies, receiverships, and foreclosures, the deals where technical mastery and calm hands are worth their weight in signed agreements.
Per the firm’s announcement, Maling’s approach is built on collaboration, strategic precision, and long-term value creation, with a focus on building a platform where brokers work as partners, delivering results across the full lifecycle of ownership. Read that twice, because it is a talent philosophy disguised as a business plan. The best producers of this generation are not lone wolves guarding their books. They are platform builders who multiply the people around them, and Cushman & Wakefield just acquired one with nearly four decades of proof.
The family storyline makes this one special. Chris built his career in a 28-year partnership with his brother David Maling, together forming one of Southern California’s best-known retail investment teams. This season, each brother opened a new chapter: Chris to Cushman & Wakefield downtown, and David to NAI Capital Commercial in Pasadena. Two seasoned specialists, two strong platforms, one family name that has anchored SoCal retail investment for decades. That is not an ending to a partnership. It is a legacy expanding its footprint.
For the LA talent market, the signal is loud and welcome. Global platforms are competing hard for proven senior producers, and Downtown Los Angeles keeps winning those commitments. A veteran with a national deal map choosing to anchor downtown is a bet on the city’s long-term story, exactly the kind of conviction we track across the SoCal talent market. And for every broker studying the move, notice what made it possible: a durable specialty, decades of client trust, and relationships that follow the advisor, not the letterhead. That is the playbook we preach in our OC/LA executive playbook, written in a 37-year career.
Retail real estate has spent years being underestimated, and the specialists who stayed loyal to the asset class are now the scarcest talent in the capital markets business. Shopping centers and net lease assets keep trading, private capital keeps hunting yield, and the advisors who can quarterback a 1031 exchange or untangle a receivership are commanding the market’s deepest respect. Maling’s move is proof that mastery of a niche, held long enough, becomes a moat.
To Chris Maling: congratulations. Thirty-seven years, 662 deals, 43 states, and the hunger is clearly still there. Downtown is lucky to have you, and we suspect the best chapter is the one you just started.
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Sources & verification
Appointment: Cushman & Wakefield announcement, Downtown Los Angeles office (move effective April 2026); press release provided directly by Chris Maling; also featured in CoStar News. Background verified via LinkedIn.
Chief Talent Strategist & Editor-in-Chief | 26-year global recruiting veteran, #1 bestselling author, cancer survivor & humanitarian. Founder of Recruiter Hustle, OC/LA's no-filter media platform for talent, finance & recruiting professionals. Heart. Human. Hustle.