About Us

Founded in 1951 by Baton Rouge businessman Wilbur Marvin, Commercial Properties Realty Trust began as a commercial real estate company formed to primarily acquire, own, lease, redevelop and manage neighborhood and community shopping centers. Today, it is a successful real estate investment trust and, as an affiliate of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, its profits provide community impact and benefit.

Commercial Properties manages a superior portfolio of assets that includes shopping centers in Florida, Louisiana and Texas and Mississippi, and an office complex, apartments and a Hilton Hotel in Baton Rouge, La.  The company is developing a 400-acre green community in Raleigh, N.C. and properties in Puerto Rico. Commercial Properties manages 4 million square feet of real estate.

To operate a commercial real estate company that maximizes profits and makes a difference in the communities where we invest. (For more about our work with the Foundation, please watch the video on the home page.)

To combine creativity and operational excellence with our exceptional reputation as a trusted and dynamic commercial real estate company to create extraordinary assets for long-term value and impact.
 
Key Staff

Carolyn Martin
President & CEO
225.709.1715
cmartin@cprt.com
Carolyn Martin joined Commercial Properties as CFO in 2002, bringing more than two decades of real estate management to the Baton Rouge-based firm. At CPRT, she has overseen the rehabilitation of shopping centers, complex financing for the reclamation of a hotel into a signature downtown property and new developments. Prior to CPRT, Carolyn was president of CEM Investments, providing real estate advisory services for project financing, asset acquisition and development feasibility analysis; and was president of Atlantic Real Estate Corp., a developer of grocery-anchored shopping centers. She also worked in public accounting for eight years, and is a graduate of Pfeiffer College.
 
Christopher G. Gavrelis, CSM
Vice President and COO
225.709.1743
cgavrelis@cprt.com
Chris Gavrelis oversees daily operations. He joined the firm with extensive experience in the management of community shopping centers, regional malls and factory outlet centers. From 1995 to 2001, he served as Executive Vice President of Konover Property Trust, a publicly traded self-administered REIT based in Cary, North Carolina. He learned business management and real estate at Essex in Baltimore and studied liberal arts at Salisbury State College in Maryland.

Tim Henson
Vice President
225.709.1743
thenson@cprt.com
With more than 20 years of real estate leasing and finance experience, Tim Henson oversees the acquisition, management, development and marketing of CPRT’s retail leasing portfolio. Most recently, he was Vice President of Leasing for Konover Property Trust, a Cary, North Carolina-based REIT, where he developed and administered all aspects of the public company’s 75 shopping centers.  Before that, he developed and leased real estate for firms in Virginia, Texas, Arizona and Washington, D.C. Tim is a business graduate of Southern Methodist University and earned an MBA from North Texas State University.