Cincinnati’s CresaPartners helps social service agency find new home

Midwest Real Estate News, May 3, 2010

CresaPartners in Cincinnati recently represented Focus Solutions in its lease of 6,000 square feet for a new corporate headquarters at the Woodlawn Business Center in Woodlawn, Ohio. Akiva Freeman, a principal of CresaPartners, represented Focus Solutions in the lease negotiations.

Sisters Zola Stewart, Focus’ chief executive officer, and Barbara Walker, its chief financial officer, founded Focus Solutions in 2006 with the goal of helping underserved Cincinnati residents to find work and keep work. The Woodlawn-based company quickly grew into the Focus brand companies: Focus Solutions (process and performance improvement company), Focus Staffing (temp and permanent hires/job training and workforce development), Cold Closers (lead generation and sales) and Vamanos Transportation (trucking and courier services).

In 2008, the executives of Focus Solutions founded The InSite Change Foundation, a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization. Under its auspices is the IncuBusiness Program, an advanced model, patent-pending incubator program housed in vacant automotive dealerships. Currently, the Cincinnati program is based at the John Nolan Business Center, which was reaching its capacity numbers.

According to Stewart, “We needed to move Focus to its own headquarters, which would free-up rentable space in the business center. Akiva was an invaluable resource to us as we began our search for new office space to accommodate our growing staff. He listened to what our needs were and worked diligently on our behalf.”