TIAA-CREF, a New York City-based financial services company that provides retirement plans to employees in the academic, research, nonprofit, and medical sectors, has opened a Spokane office downtown in the Fernwell Building, at 505 W. Riverside.

For now, the company will staff the new office with one full-time consultant, and will send additional employees here from its Seattle office as needed, says Bradley Tucker, a Seattle-based TIAA-CREF consultant who helped open the office here.

Tucker says TIAA-CREF's Seattle office formerly had been serving clients who work at colleges and universities in the Spokane area.

"We decided it would be better to have an office closer to clients here to provide them better access," he says.

Tucker says TIAA-CREF hopes to expand the Spokane office in the future as its client-base here grows. In planning the new office, he says the company looked at where the majority of its current clients' employers are located here, as well as where potential clients might be employed, such as the hospitals and medical centers located near downtown.

TIAA-CREF's consultants assist its clients with developing a retirement portfolio that can include mutual funds, individual retirement accounts, brokerage accounts, and life insurance, Tucker says.

Because TIAA-CREF is a direct provider of retirement plans, third-party advisers also are available to work with the company's clients here, he says.

TIAA-CREF manages about $410 billion in assets and serves 3.7 million active and retired employees who participate in 27,000 retirement plans. The company has about 70 offices nationwide.