Jun. 28--NORFOLK -- In an apparent shake-up of a long-standing local commercial real estate brokerage, four of GVA Advantis' top industrial brokers resigned in the past two weeks to join other firms.

On Tuesday, the Norfolk office of CB Richard Ellis announced the hiring of industrial broker Ken Bennassi, who had worked for GVA Advantis for more than a decade. On the same day, longtime GVA Advantis broker Stephanie A. Sanker confirmed that she had joined S.L. Nusbaum Realty Co.

A day later, another commercial real estate company, Thalhimer/Cushman & Wakefield, announced that former GVA Advantis industrial brokers Bill Throne and Clay Culbreth had joined its Virginia Beach office.

The departures come a year after the private-equity group Monument Ventures acquired a controlling stake in GVA Advantis in a bid to expand the real estate firm's operations and broaden its reach in the Southeast.

Monument moved the GVA Advantis headquarters from Atlanta to Washington, D.C. The acquisition came as activity in commercial real estate slowed amid the recession.

On Thursday, Jeffrey T. Neal, Monument's co-founder and GVA Advantis' chairman and CEO, called the recent resignations coincidental.

"People make career decisions based on a variety of reasons," Neal said. "The business is in an especially volatile time. That means there's going to be a lot of musical chairs."

Still, Neal said the firm has implemented cost-cutting measures recently to reduce expenses at most of its 16 offices in the Southeast.

"There's been significant fallout in revenue generated by brokerage transactions," Neal said. "That translates to a lot of pressure on the bottom line."

In February, the firm quietly changed the leadership of its local offices, demoting longtime managing director Deborah Stearns and handing the reins to Clark Baldwin, who has worked out of the Newport News office of GVA Advantis for more than two decades.

"It was a mutually agreed-upon change in her role," Neal said. "She wanted to get back into the production side of things."

Stearns said she is acting as a broker in her new role as executive director.

GVA Advantis traces its local roots to Goodman Segar Hogan, a Norfolk-based real estate development, management and brokerage firm acquired in 1998 by The St. Joe Co., a Florida land development company.

Josh Brown, (757) 446-2318, josh.brown@pilotonline.com

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