Bentley Smith

Bentley Smith is a Senior Vice President with CBRE’s Institutional Properties team. Located in Minneapolis, MN, he has more than 11 years of industrial sales and leasing experience within the commercial real estate profession. Bentley specializes in representing institutional, private, and corporate clients in the acquisition, disposition and sourcing the equity capital stack in industrial real estate transactions. Bentley began his career with CBRE in 2018 and has been involved in more than 525 transactions, valued at over $17 billion and totaling over 212 MSF.

Bentley is part of CBRE National Partners, the firm’s nationally connected industrial and logistics capital markets network. Established in 2010, National Partners brings together 97 professionals across 14 strategic U.S. markets, delivering unmatched insight through the combination of deep local expertise and a national capital markets perspective. They are supported by CBRE’s fully integrated debt and structured finance, leasing, and investment banking platforms, enabling clients to achieve optimal value and certainty of execution on every assignment. Since inception, National Partners has closed more than 3.6 billion square feet of transactions valued at $265 billion, averaging more than $25 billion in sales annually. They hold the #1 U.S. Industrial & Logistics Investment Sales Advisor ranking with a 38% market share, according to Real Estate Alert. Additionally, they close one deal every business day and feeds live transaction data into their proprietary Trading Desk, giving clients unparalleled visibility into market trends. In 2025, National Partners successfully completed transactions totaling 127 million square feet with an aggregate value of $18.2 billion. Learn more at www.cbre.com/np.

The North Central NP professionals consist of five capital markets partners, five dedicated support team members, and four financial analysts covering the Midwest markets of Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Columbus, Cincinnati, Detroit, Milwaukee and SE Wisconsin.

Prior to joining the Institutional Properties team at CBRE, Bentley was an analyst for HFF in Austin, Texas where he underwrote and helped facilitate the sale of over $1.3 billion worth of investment properties in the Austin and San Antonio markets. Prior to his work at HFF, Bentley was a Senior Associate for Colliers International in Austin, Texas focused on industrial and logistics leasing in Austin, Texas.

Education

• University of St. Thomas - Bachelor of Arts; Business Marketing
• Mr. Smith currently holds a real estate license in Minnesota

Professional Affiliations / Accreditations

• Member of NAIOP (National Association of Industrial and Office Properties)
• Member of MNCAR (Minnesota Commercial Association of Real Estate)
• 40 under 40 Minneapolis Business Journal 2021 and 2024
• MREJ “Most Significant Industrial Sale Transaction” 2021 and 2024
• MNCAR “Investment Transaction of the Year” 2020 and 2024
• Alumni Beacon Award - 2025
• Finance & Commerce – 2020 Rising Young Professional
• CBRE Minneapolis Rookie of the Year- 2019
• Associate of the Year – Colliers International, Austin, TX- 2015- 2016

Significant Transactions

Clients Represented