While he retains veto power, Irving Hughes Group principal Craig Irving gives his partner Jason Hughes wide latitude in developing the firm's marketing campaign. In a series of advertisements published in this magazine, some of which also have been published elsewhere, the commercial real estate brokerage mostly touts its own accomplishments, although it occasionally has incurred the wrath of competitors by knocking them, not individually, but as a group.

    One ad criticizes many commercial real estate brokers as "little more than... glorified tour guides.

    "In fact," the ad continues, "most 'brokers' aren’t even brokers - they're licensed salespeople... Even worse, most have a conflict of interest by representing landlords as their primary business."

    A frequent theme of Irving Hughes' ads is its moral high ground, exclusively representing tenants in lease negotiations, unlike other firms that may represent the landlord and tenant in the same transaction. The target audience for these ads are commercial tenants, of course.

    Kraig Kristofferson, a popular veteran broker with CB Commercial Real Estate Group Inc. (and handsomer brother of the actor), complained of the ad last February to Bob Harp, president of the San Diego County Commercial Association of Realtors. Hughes' partner, Irving, was president-elect of the association at the time.

    "It is one thing for a company to tout its capabilities and successes," Kristofferson complains in a Feb. 14 letter to Harp, "but quite another thing to denigrate the competition. To imply the rest of us have questionable ethics and education, and to refer to us as 'glorified tour guides' is certainly unfair and a negative depiction of our industry."

    Not all of Irving Hughes' competitors were so irritated, though. "They're just saying it the way it is," Bill Munster, a broker with John Burnham & Co., laughs after reviewing the controversial ad.

     Nonetheless, Irving pulled the ad, which had first run in October 1996.

    The Irving Hughes Group's holier-than-thou attitude toward competitors especially irritates those who point to Hughes' representation of Downtown San Diego’s largest private landlord, Robert Sarver and his Southwest Value Partners affiliates, in their acquisition of four Downtown office towers. Matt Spathas, an executive of Sentre Partners, is said to be unforgiving toward Hughes for having engineered the sale of 600 B Street out from beneath Sentre Partners, which had an earlier near-buyer in place.

    The Irving Hughes Group "absolutely does not" have a conflict of interest when bringing client tenants to the table with Southwest Value Partners, says Hughes.

    "First of all, even from the California Department of Real Estate point of view, a conflict means you have to be directly representing two parties in the same transaction. So the actual conflict is non-existent. We do not ever represent Southwest in their lease transactions; tenants only.

    "In dealing with a perceived conflict, if our competitors want to hammer it, they can say whatever they want. The reality is, we do many times their number of transactions in Downtown. Southwest has four buildings. We do a lot of transactions with them, as we do with every building owner."

    The Irving Hughes Group also represents tenants looking to become owners by buying their own space.

    Part of our jobs as journalists is to anticipate the questions of readers, and in that vein, we’ve presumed readers in the commercial real estate business might wonder if the Irving Hughes Group "bought" the cover story this month. It didn’t. And shame on you for wondering. Covers aren’t for sale; neither is any of the editorial in this book. This is our 12th monthly edition since this publisher bought the magazine, and this is the first instance in which an advertiser became a cover story, although some intelligent cover-story subjects subsequently became advertisers. Cover subjects are chosen usually for their extraordinary stories, and Irving, at age 35, and more so Hughes, at 30, are certainly newsworthy for their extraordinary accomplishments so early in their careers. They've probably put more good tenants in more good office space in Downtown than anyone else in the last two years, and they do good work in Carlsbad, North City and Mission Valley, too.

    We’re also happy to acknowledge that some very smart Irving Hughes competitors also are advertisers, including CB Commercial Real Estate Group, Inc., John Burnham & Co./Oncor, Southwest Value Partners and Trilogy Real Estate Management Inc., among others, and we think all of them are wise for using the least expensive and highest quality medium to reach the largest business audience in San Diego. Together, these real estate advertisers represent most of the commercial property transactions in San Diego County in the last 24 months.

    For advertising information, please call an account executive. For cover stories, persuade the editor.