Marcus & Millichap Inc., a large commercial real estate investment services company with offices throughout the United States and Canada, plans to open a Spokane office shortly, says Joel Deis, the firm’s Seattle-based regional manager for Washington state.

Max McDonald, who joined Marcus & Millichap several years ago and won the Rising Star award in its 40-broker Seattle office last year, will relocate to Spokane by February and will operate the office by himself for now, Deis says. A location for the office hasn’t been selected yet, he says.

Brokers from Marcus & Millichap, which is publicly traded and based in Baltimore, have been handling real estate investment sales in the Spokane area from the company’s Seattle office, and the company has wanted to open an office here “for a long time,” Deis says. He says McDonald wanted to relocate here, partly because his wife’s parents live here, “so that just sped the clock up.”

Deis says, “We’ve been doing well over there without a physical presence,” but he adds, “We need an evangelist” who can help expand the firm’s business opportunities throughout Eastern Washington and North Idaho, and McDonald is well suited to fill that role.

McDonald, a Seattle native, says, “I’m excited to—first of all—live over there. I spend a lot of time in Spokane and North Idaho and am looking forward to especially the summers.”

He adds, “I do some business over there already, just remotely. I feel it will just open a lot more opportunity for me just being in Spokane. The commute is going to be a lot nicer … (it will offer) a lot of benefits.”

McDonald says he and his wife, Laura, who met while both attending the University of Washington and have a baby girl born in October, already have bought a South Hill home, and his wife’s parents are eager to be able to spend time with the grandchild.

He says his wife attended Mead High School and her parents formerly lived on Spokane’s North Side, but now live near downtown.

McDonald says he will be solely a broker here, with Deis serving as managing broker for both the Seattle and Spokane offices. He says he will continue to sell retail and office properties exclusively, which are the areas in which he specializes. He also says he will work closely with the Seattle office and can bring in specialists, as needed, to work with clients or prospective clients on the sale of other types of properties.

Of the potential for the office here to grow, he says, “I’d love to have more guys join me. I don’t know what the number is, but we’d like to have a bigger presence here.”

The office here will be Marcus & Millichap’s only other office in Washington state, although the company also has offices in Portland and Boise.

Founded in 1971 and traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MMI, the brokerage says on its website that it has more than 1,600 investment sales and financing professionals in more than 80 offices in North America.

It says it closed more than 8,700 investment transactions for private and institutional investors in 2015, involving a range of retail and commercial, apartment, hospitality, health care, industrial, self-storage, recreational, and other properties.

Marcus & Millichap reported net income of $15.14 million, or 39 cents a diluted share, for the 2016 third quarter, roughly on par with earnings of $15.17 million, also equating to 39 cents a share, in the 2015 third quarter. For the first nine months of last year, it reported net income of $47.5 million, or $1.22 a diluted share, up from $46.4 million, or $1.19 a share, in the year-earlier period.

The brokerage hasn’t released 2016 full-year financial performance data yet. It reported record sales volume, revenue, and net income in 2015, including earnings of $66.35 million, up from $49.53 million in 2014.