REAL ESTATE

Two small service companies opened recently, hoping to flourish in the county’s robust real estate market.

PLANit, an interior architecture and design company, has just opened in Corona del Mar under owner John Arnold Garcia, who left the Project Team in Santa Ana to go out on his own.

Also going it alone is Debora Collins, a former real estate representative for several retailers, including Chief Auto Parts. She has opened Collins Johnson Enterprises in Corona del Mar. The company specializes in analyzing real estate properties for retailers and restaurants.

Also new: a unit called the Institutional Investment Group at Grubb & Ellis Co., a commercial real estate broker with a regional office in Irvine. The group was formed to assist institutional investors in buying and selling property.

On the expansion side, the Orange County office of Peat Marwick Main & Co., has taken another 6,000 square feet at the Center Tower office building in South Coast Plaza. The nation’s largest accounting firm already had 42,000 square feet of space on the ninth and 10th floors of the building.