Koll's Diversity Grows with Management of the Entire Town of Bagdad, Arizona

Koll's rapid growth as a company during the past several years has been accompanied by swiftly growing diversity in the real estate properties it manages, as well.

However, managing an entire town was not the kind of diversity anyone at Koll had thought much about. In fact, no real estate

services company had ever managed a whole town, to Koll's knowledge.

That all changed in May when Cyprus Bagdad Copper Corp. awarded Koll-CBS the management of Bagdad, Arizona, the desert mountain mining town it literally owns and operates in support of its open-pit mining operation there.

Phoenix-based Koll-CBS, acquired by Koll earlier this year, serves as the company's Southwest regional office.

With some 2,400 residents, Bagdad is an unincorporated community nestled in the hills of the Aquarius Mountains at an elevation of 3,800 feet in west central Yavapai County, approximately 100 miles northwest of Phoenix. Named for the mining claim discovered by W.J. Pare and J.M. Murphy in 1882, Bagdad is located on State Route 96 about 15 miles east of U.S. Route 93. Relatively small-scale underground copper mining was conducted in Bagdad throughout the early 1900s. However, by the end of 1945, the switch to open-pit mining had begun, and expansion of the mine required relocating company housing to the current townsite about two miles from the mine. Today, Cyprus Bagdad employs about 600 overall, with some 350 working in its mining operations. Housing in Bagdad includes 663 company-owned units, ranging from one to four bedrooms, and 289 mobile home lots, also owned by Cyprus Bagdad.

In addition, the mining company owns most of the commercial buildings and community facilities. Koll was among some 30 property management firms which received a Request For Proposal from
Cyprus Bagdad, the second leading copper producer in Arizona. The mining company had decided to concentrate on its mining operations and turn management of the town over to a company like Koll, reports Tom Shelton, senior vice president of Koll-CBS.

"It was certainly a unique opportunity for us - one we really hadn't considered to that point," Shelton said. "However, since Koll provides feemanagement services for everything from offices, to shopping centers, to industrial facilities, to multifamily residential projects, we realized we had the combined expertise to manage a company-owned town like Bagdad."

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