Tag Archive for: butters realty & management

Caroline Fleischer, Darcie Lunsford Join New CRE Firm As Senior Vice Presidents

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Caroline Fleischer and Darcie Lunsford have joined Colliers International South Florida as Senior Vice Presidents.

Darcie and Caroline will work as a team based in the Boca Raton office, focusing on all aspects of office leasing services.

“We’re thrilled to welcome Caroline and Darcie to the Colliers team to further enhance our office leasing platform. Their combined experience in commercial real estate and extensive involvement in the community bring a dynamic approach to executing on behalf of our clients,” said Dustin Ballard, Managing Director and Market Leader for Colliers South Florida. 

With over 30 years of experience in the industry, Caroline is a seasoned professional specializing in tenant representation in the South Florida region. Her previous role as Executive Vice President of Occupier Services at Butters Realty & Management saw her leading the ramp-up of tenant representation services as well as expanding on landlord-side leasing initiatives for Butters and various third-party accounts. Before joining Butters in 2019, Caroline was the Managing Principal for tenant representation-only firm CRESA South Florida, hired to rebuild the company’s practice. She also spent more than a decade of her career as a tenant representative at Cushman & Wakefield in South Florida.

Darcie brings her extensive commercial real estate experience, focusing on landlord representation of office properties in Palm Beach and Broward County. Before joining Colliers, she served as Executive Vice President of Landlord Services at Butters Realty & Management, where she oversaw the leasing and repositioning of office assets for Butters and other third-party landlords. Prior to Butters, Darcie spent 22 years as a newspaper and television reporter, covering the commercial real estate industry for over a decade at the South Florida Business Journal. Darcie has been selected to serve on the National Board of Directors for NAIOP in 2025, the nation’s largest commercial real estate development association. She is the past Chair of the NAIOP Florida PAC and the past president of NAIOP South Florida and NAIOP Florida, which sets and executes the statewide legislative/lobbying objectives for Florida’s commercial development industry.

Over the previous three years, Caroline and Darcie, as a team, have demonstrated strong deal-making acumen by executing over 200 transactions, generating more than $150 million in office lease and sales value for their clients despite pandemic market challenges. Their diverse portfolio includes the recent lease up and repositioning of noteworthy office assets such as University Place at City Center in Coral Springs, Northwest Broward County’s largest office tower, 1900 Midtown in Boca Raton, and the Corporate Plaza at Lakeside in Fort Lauderdale, where they have doubled leasing since taking over the listing.

 

Packaging Design Firm Signs Lease To Relocate HQ To Plantation

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Smurfit Kappa, a global leader in paper‐based packaging solutions, is relocating its United States headquarters to the 465,000‐square‐foot Royal Palm business campus at Pine Island Road and I‐595 in Plantation.

Smurfit Kappa, a FTSE 100 company has over 350 production sites across 36 countries. The company, whose corporate offices are currently located in Sunrise, has inked a long‐term lease for 10,673 square feet of office space at the three‐building park. The new lease reflects Smurfit Kappa´s desire to be in a best‐in‐class and highly amenitized office, setting to serve its existing employees while also setting the tone to attract high‐caliber talent.

 

Butters Realty & Management office team of Caroline Fleischer, Darcie Lunsford and Sky Butters represented Smurfit Kappa. Danet Linares of Blanca Commercial Real Estate represented the landlord, TR Royal Palm Corp.

“Smurfit Kappa was seeking an upscale office venue that would help enhance its positioning by providing a myriad of on‐site amenities,” said Fleischer, who is executive vice president of occupier services. “Royal Palm’s café, fitness center, conference facilities, garage parking and executive lounge made it an attractive choice.”

Smurfit Kappa offers customers in the consumer, retail, industrial and e‐commerce sectors an unrivalled portfolio of paper‐based packaging solutions which are 100% renewable and biodegradable and are sourced from recyclable material.

The Company expects to move into its new headquarters by the Fall of 2023.

 

Law Firm Doubles Palm Beach County Footprint, Leasing 12,138 Square Feet At Landmark Boca Raton Building

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The law firm of Weiss Serota Helfman Cole & Bierman is expanding in Boca Raton. The 30-year-old business and government law firm has signed a long-term lease for 12,138 square feet at One Boca Place, a 277,390-square-foot, Class A building on Glades Road near I-95.

The new lease will more than double the size of the firm’s Boca Raton office, setting the foundation for continued growth of staff, attorneys, and practice lines in Palm Beach County.

Butters Realty & Management office team of Caroline Fleischer, Darcie Lunsford and Sky Butters represented Weiss Serota in the lease transaction. Laurel Oswald of TCRE represented landlord, CP Group.

Butters Realty & Management-Caroline Fleischer, Darcie Lunsford and Sky Butters

“While many companies were shedding real estate and recalibrating staffing levels in the face of the pandemic, Weiss Serota seized the counter-cyclical opportunity to grow, turning uncertainty to its negotiating advantage,” said Butter’s Fleischer, who is executive vice president of occupier services. “One Boca Place, fresh off the heels of a multimillion renovation, offered the firm both the prestige and the physical infrastructure needed to meet its growth trajectory.”

Weiss Serota originally established a Boca Raton office in January 2017, with just five Palm Beach County-based attorneys there at the time. Since then, the firm has more than tripled the size of its team and anticipates having at least 17 attorneys working out of One Boca Place when it moves into the space in spring 2022. The new office gives the firm additional space to continue its expansion in Palm Beach County.

Notable recent additions to the firm’s Boca Raton office include The DuBosar Law Group, led by accomplished litigator Howard D. DuBosar, veteran construction attorney Ronald S. Nisonson and veteran municipal and real estate attorney David N. Tolces.

“Our Boca Raton office has proven to be a catalyst for growth for the entire firm, particularly with our private sector practice areas,” said Brett J. Schneider, Partner and Boca Raton Office Managing Director. “There is tremendous activity and expansion occurring throughout Palm Beach County. We believe our continued growth and new space will help us better serve this growing business community while also provided our employees with a vibrant and highly desirable place to work near where many of them live.”  

 

Butters Office Team Closes 171,000 Square Feet of Sales, Leases Since Pandemic Onset

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Since the first case of COVID-19 struck Florida on March 1, the Butters Realty & Management office brokerage team of Darcie Lunsford, Caroline Fleischer, Molly McDonough and Sky Butters have executed more than 170,000 square feet of office transactions. In all, the Butters team generated $32.4 million in aggregate transaction value for internal and third-party assets and clients since the pandemic’s onset.

The transactions span nearly two dozen leases to representation of medical financier Bankers Healthcare Group in its acquisition of a 130,000-square-foot corporate headquarters at 3700 Lakeside Drive in Miramar in an off-market deal.

“As soon as the shelter-in-place order was lifted, our team was back in the office that day,” said Lunsford, director of office leasing at Butters. “We saw a wave of up pent-up demand coming out of the shutdown as leases expired and smaller entrepreneurial companies emerged looking to seize potential deals in the market.”

While many large corporate occupiers have remained reticent to make real estate decisions, firms of less than 5,000 square feet have still been active, Lunsford noted.

“Generally, we are seeing companies with counter-cyclical models, insurance, law, technology or financial service providers and other essential administrative hubs that have not been as drastically impacted by the pandemic-induced recession,” Lunsford said.

“In a tough economic situation like this, you can’t wait for the market to come to you, you have to go to the market,” said Fleischer, director of occupier services for Butters. “There are tenants out there that have a need and a want, but you have to be dogged.”

During the pandemic, Butters also increased occupancy several percentage points to 97 percent within its own four-building Boca Raton office portfolio.

“I think the key factor to our effectiveness in closing a high volume of transactions in the face of this unprecedented crisis is that we are highly focused,” said Malcolm Butters, president of Butters. “We have very strong local relationships and we are able to execute.”

Among the more notable office lease transactions:
• Bohler Engineering leased 4,910 square feet at 1900 NW Corporate Boulevard in Boca Raton
• Medigap Life leased 3,577 square feet at 1900 NW Corporate Boulevard in Boca Raton
• Trust Hills Co. leases 3,680 square feet at 851 Broken Sound Parkway in Boca Raton

Bankers Healthcare Group Buys 130K Office Building For HQ Expansion

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Record-breaking growth is driving Bankers Healthcare Group, a leading provider of financial solutions for licensed healthcare practitioners and other highly skilled professionals, to expand to a new corporate headquarters in Miramar and hire new staff.

A BHG company purchased an existing 130,000-square-foot, six-floor building at 3700 Lakeside Dr. in Miramar. Terms of the sale were not disclosed. Butters Realty & Management represented BHG in the off-market purchase.

The company will soon begin remodeling the building, with plans to move in October 2020. BHG’s 260 employees will occupy the first, second, and third floors; the three other existing tenants will remain on floors four through six. BHG will retain its current location in Davie and make it available for commercial lease after the relocation.

“We founded our company’s corporate headquarters in South Florida nearly 20 years ago, and we’re thrilled to continue our growth here,” said Eric Castro, Co-Founder of Bankers Healthcare Group.

“We’ve outgrown our current space and our new building can better accommodate our steadily increasing business and staff numbers.”

BHG’s new headquarters will be equipped to encourage health and wellness. Amenities will include:

  • Gym with personal trainers
  • Café with an on-site chef
  • Yoga/meditation room
  • Massage room

The space will also include a coffee shop and parking to accommodate 700 vehicles. Its central location near the Dade/Broward county line is less than 30 miles to both the Miami International Airport and Ft. Lauderdale International Airport.

BHG has plans to hire an additional 129 employees by next year, as market demand for BHG’s suite of financial solutions continues to increase.

“Miramar is excited to welcome Bankers Healthcare Group to our vibrant city. Miramar is a place where companies like BHG can employ exceptional talent. We’re pleased that this dynamic company will help to further diversify our corporate base,” said Miramar City Manager Vernon E. Hargray.

The purchase was the culmination of an extensive site selection process and complex negotiation process with the seller.

“BHG examined numerous opportunities,” said Molly McDonough, senior vice president of Butters, who worked with BHG in its search along with Butters Executive Vice President Darcie Lunsford. “We had to find a location close to BHG’s existing Davie facility with high-quality corporate infrastructure that could be renovated and occupied quickly enough to meet the company’s brisk growth trajectory. Nothing on the market worked, so we identified and pursued this asset off-market because it fit our needs.”

BHG selected G. Alvarez Studio as the architect.

“From all of us at G. Alvarez Studio, Inc., we would love to say a big congratulations to the entire BHG family! We are so excited to have been awarded this fantastic project, and working with a talented and progressive institution,” said Christian Vidal, AIA, Vice President at G. Alvarez Studio. “Since we met the team, we were quickly drawn to their enthusiasm, internal dynamics and overall workplace atmosphere. We look forward to creating a new space that further reflects and supports BHG’s unique culture, and future growth for years to come.”

 

Pharmaceutical Firm Relocates, Inks 56,000 SF Lease Deal

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NAI/Merin Hunter Codman, Inc. announced that it completed one of the largest office lease transactions in Palm Beach County this year with TherapeuticsMD, Inc., which signed a 56,212-square-foot lease at 951 Yamato.

Jay M. Grossman, President and Director, and Richard W. Brockney of NAI/Merin Hunter Codman represented the Landlord, 951 Yamato Acquisition Company LLC, an affiliate of Brookwood Financial Partners, LLC.

Molly McDonough, Senior Vice-President of Butters Realty & Management, represented the tenant in the transaction.

The long-time Boca Raton-based pharmaceutical firm received three FDA product approvals since May and has outgrown its 32,000-square-foot location at 6800 Broken Sound Parkway NW, also in Boca Raton.

When asked why TherapeuticsMD chose 951 Yamato, Josie Weitzel, Director of Corporate Operations, stated “After two long years of researching facility options in the Palm Beach County area, we finally found a space that will offer an open space floor plan, which will allow for a more cohesive and collaborative environment to meet the needs our current and future staff.”

Grossman added, “951 Yamato was well suited for the tenant’s need with its large floor plates. In addition, the ability to find large blocks of office space to accommodate headquarter-sized tenants in Boca Raton is diminishing. The few that can be found are priced at the top of the market, located in less convenient areas, and many lack modern, Class-A features and amenities. 951 Yamato recently completed a million-dollar, environmentally friendly property improvement program to ensure that it remained a first-choice for large office space users. With the signing of the TherapeuticsMD lease and other recent leases, the building is now 89% leased.”

Current plans are to build-out two additional spec suites to be delivered in the first quarter of 2019, and a 2,000-square-foot conference center for the use of all 951 Yamato tenants.