The national company based in Houston has a history in Hawai'i going back eight years, but until three months ago the firm primarily managed or leased six Honolulu office buildings.

Since mid-July, PM Realty has tripled the number of major properties it manages, leases or lists for sale, to include hotels, shopping centers and an industrial park on O'ahu and the Neighbor Islands.

The dramatic expansion will mean more competition in the state's commercial real-estate industry and involve a corporate-owned national firm in deals such as bringing new retailers to Waikele Center, selling Chevron-owned gas stations and managing commercial space at the Pacific Beach Hotel and King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel.

Linda Gee, a local real-estate veteran who joined PM Realty in April 2001 with the intent of organizing an expansion, called the additions a "heavy-duty nucleus" on which the company will continue to build.

"We're just getting started," said Wendell Brooks III, one of seven former employees of local real-estate firm Chaney, Brooks & Co., which recently joined PM Realty with clients including Gentry Properties, Kaiser Permanente and A&B Properties Inc.

Another Chaney hire is Skip Schuman, a broker helping Gentry sell 1 million square feet at Gentry Business Park in Waipi'o.

Brooks said the firm sees lots of growth potential working for property owners, such as Kamehameha Schools and Campbell Estate, that are increasingly outsourcing real-estate management.

Other upcoming work for PM Realty, which has a staff of about 35 in Hawai'i, includes trying to find new tenants to fill 23,000 square feet of space available at Waikele Center and marketing a roughly $30 million office building for sale.

New management or leasing assignments, which increased PM Realty's Hawai'i portfolio from about 2 million square feet to 4.5 million square feet, also include Crossroads Shopping Center on the Big Island, Piilani Village Shopping Center on Maui and downtown Honolulu office buildings Pacific Guardian Center, Haseko Center and Ocean View Center.

PM Realty was founded in Houston in 1954 as Fletcher Emerson Co. and was renamed Property Management Systems in 1974 after being acquired by Century Corp. After two buyouts in the 1990s, the company became PM Realty Group LP and has about 1,300 employees in nearly all 50 states managing more than $8 billion in real estate.