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Unico Properties of Seattle is taking over day-to-day property management responsibilities for more than 6 million square feet of space previously held by ScanlanKemperBard, one of Portland’s largest real estate investment companies.

In total, the company will provide services for 36 properties in seven states.

“SKB called Unico earlier this year and wanted us to look into its operational efficiency,” said John Lamb, the chief financial officer and senior vice president of property management at Unico. “One of the first things we realized was that the company had four or five property managers.”

With the addition of SKB’s properties, Unico now owns and/or manages 16 million square feet of property in western states.

Unico has property management contracts in about half of the markets of these new properties, Lamb said. The company also is excited to expand into new markets – Southern California, Phoenix, Salt Lake City and Honolulu – he said.

The sole Oregon property, the 50,000-square-foot Lake Place in Lake Oswego, will be Unico’s first foray into shopping center management.

Unico will hire 40 new employees, 30 of which already manage the properties. The other 10 will join the accounting department.