Real Estate Forum - April 2011

4
Colliers International

AREA LEADERS

DONNA ABOOD, CEO, Colliers International South Florida LEE ARNOLD, Chairman and CEO, Colliers International Tampa Bay, Central and Southwest Florida

ROBERT W. SELTON III, CEO, Colliers International Northeast Florida

Total Square Footage of Leases Closed: 7,860,826 SF

Colliers vice president Guy Preston scored a touchdown with a 553,151-square-foot industrial lease for Football Fanatics at 5233 Commonwealth Ave. in Jacksonville, FL. Having outgrown its existing 160,000-square-foot location in the West Side Industrial submarket, the college and professional sports apparel retailer needed a facility that could meet its growth and site-specific capital infrastructure requirements of a multi-level conveyor belt, racking system and multi-level mezzanine. It was also necessary to provide 500 to 750-plus employee parking spaces while still providing enough truck court space to handle shipping and receiving. Preston carried the ball through the goalpost in February 2010.

In another new industrial lease that represented a substantial increase in space for the tenant, Manning Building Supplies signed a 102,275-square-foot deal at 3362 All American Blvd. in Orlando’s Northwest Orange submarket. Colliers brokers Matt Sullivan and Wilson McDowell found a new location for Manning after the previous tenant, a lumber supply company, filed for bankruptcy and left the building in 2010. Due to attractive lease rates, Manning was

CNL Commercial Real Estate
5

AREA LEADER

PAUL ELLIS, President

Total Square Footage of Leases Closed: 3,068,417 SF

One of CNL Commercial Real Estate’s bell-ringer deals of 2010 underscores the importance of ongoing relationships with your clients. Having worked for a number of years with both Fidelity Information Services and Metavante Technologies on their real estate strategies, when the former acquired the latter, CNL was poised to act. The quest was to find real estate to accommodate the newly combined company, and CNL’s response was a 205,000-square-foot build-to-suit office lease at Summit Park III in Maitland, FL, that both met FIS’s needs and represented its newly combined culture.

Would that the market was always that deal-friendly: “Until
we see sustainable job growth, the lingering effects of the
Great Recession will continue,” says CNL president Paul Ellis.
“The good news is, Florida is affordable again and will return
to population growth given our quality of life and lack of state
income tax.”
The firm, however, did enjoy a prosperous 2010, racking up
$237.75 million in deal volume. CNL Commercial closed on
200 office, industrial and retail transactions in Orlando,
Tampa and Jacksonville, FL over the 12-month period.

24 REAL ESTATE FORUM APRIL 2011

TOP-PRODUCING LEASING BROKERS

ROBERT LISTOKIN Senior Vice President, South Florida

JIM KOVACS Mng. Dir, Retail Services, Tampa Bay

ROBERT W.
SELTON III
CEO, Northeast Florida

able to triple the size of its space in the new location.

“Overall, we are experiencing a bifurcated real estate mar-
ket composed of trophy and trauma assets,” say Colliers execu-
tives. “Industrial properties are quietly improving at a rate
faster than many professionals anticipated,” with lease conces-
sions slowing rapidly, rental rates beginning to increase and
sales activity on the rise. “Retail will benefit new concepts
entering the marketplace and retailers seeking to improve
their location. Office properties will see only modest improve-
ments in fundamentals due to anemic job growth.”
Still, leasing agents at Colliers’ five statewide offices—
Tampa Bay, Central Florida, Southwest Florida, Northeast
Florida and South Florida—managed to close an impressive
numbers of transactions in 2010—1,013 deals, with an aggre-
gate value of $407.94 million.