Tag Archive for: commercial florida realty services

Commercial Boulevard Office Vacancies Soaring

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The office market along the heart of uptown Fort Lauderdale’s Commercial Boulevard offers easy access to Interstate 95 and Florida’s Turnpike and good bargains for businesses seeking breaks on rent.

The mostly older buildings are losing their appeal as tenants leave the stretch for newer and more upscale complexes across Broward County and South Florida.

Real estate brokers say they’re having to forgo traditional office tenants along Commercial and instead are targeting more medical businesses and schools.

“We’re chasing the deals, just like everybody else in that market,” said Peter Reed, a broker at Commercial Florida Realty Services in Boca Raton.

Another broker was even more blunt.

“It’s like hand-to-hand combat retaining and attracting tenants there,” said Jonathan Kingsley, senior vice president at Jones Lang LaSalle in Miami.

As businesses recover from the recession, the region’s most prestigious office buildings are almost fully leased. But second-tier properties continue to struggle. Tenants often prefer newer buildings to them because they offer more efficient layouts and high-speed Internet connections.

Between I-95 and the turnpike, there are 17 buildings in the Commercial Boulevard market consisting of 1.1 million square feet. The vacancy rate is 27.5 percent, well above the 16.5 percent vacancy for all of Broward, according to Commercial Florida Realty.

A 167,270-square-foot building at 2050 Spectrum Boulevard is almost a third vacant, as is a building at 2101 W. Commercial Blvd. Some of the smaller buildings are half-empty.

BellSouth, Orlove Pharmaceuticals, Northwestern Mutual and the Katzman Garfinkel & Berger law firm are among the tenants to leave the Commercial Boulevard market in recent years.

Katzman Garfinkel leased 18,000 square feet at 1501 NW 49th Street for about three years but left in 2011 when it bought a larger building in Margate.

Along Commercial, the firm often found its parking spaces filled by students from a local college, said Donna Berger, managing partner of Katzman Garfinkel. What’s more, the layout of the building was inconvenient, she said.

“When you’re running a business, you’re looking for a big space, parking, and for it to be easy for clients and customers to find you — and you want them to be comfortable when they get there,” Berger said. We had a happy home there for years, but at the end of the day, we just outgrew it.”

Competition from the Cypress Creek market and other complexes in southwestern Broward will make it difficult for Commercial to make a comeback, brokers say.

“There really is no great hope for that corridor,” Kingsley said. “We project that it will always be a secondary market.”

 

Sources: Sun-Sentinel

Silberling Rejoins Sacks And Reed

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Ken Silberling has joined Commercial Florida Realty Services, LLC as a Principal, focusing on office leasing and investment sales.

Silberling had been Vice President of Leasing and Acquisitions and Director of Business Development at Danburg Management Corporation since 1999.  At Danburg, a Boca Raton based commercial real estate investment and development firm, Silberling was instrumental in growing the portfolio from 150,000 to over 1 million square feet and completed well over 500 office and industrial lease transactions.  Ken holds a Master of Business Administration from Georgetown University.

At Commercial Florida, Silberling rejoins George Sacks and Peter D. Reed, Principals of Commercial Florida Realty Services, with whom he had worked at the original Commercial Florida in the late 1990s. Sacks sold the assets of the original Commercial Florida to Grubb and Ellis in 1999, but re-formed the company in 2005.  At Commercial Florida, Silberling will be looking to grow the company’s third party leasing and management business and source investment opportunities.

“I’m really excited to be back with George and Pete.” said Silberling “There is certainly a level of comfort and mutual respect. I feel our skills complement each other and that together we can provide a range of services that is unique to the market.”

“What I like about Commercial Florida 2.0 is that our platform now combines leasing, management and sales. We have an a-la-carte menu of services that we can tailor to a client’s need. In addition, we have all been involved from the ownership side, so we have a true understanding of what today’s real estate owner needs. And while we’re all a bit older and wiser, I’ve learned a few new tricks, so we’re at the cutting edge as far as marketing and technology.”

Commercial Florida has also resumed production of its semi-annual office market reports. “Our market information is what differentiated us and helped establish our brand back in the 90s” said Sacks. “While Co-Star and others have changed the landscape for data collection, the need for intuitive interpretation of the data is more important than ever. While Ken won’t be writing the reports like he did previously, he will certainly add his own unique and often entertaining perspective.”  “It’s a lot easier to compile the data and create pretty graphics these days,” added Silberling, “but our real job is to translate the data into actions that will help owners maximize their property values. I believe we have the talent to do that as well as anyone in the market.”

Sacks And Reed Close15,000 SF Expansion

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George Sacks and Peter D. Reed, principals of Commercial Florida Realty Services, announced a 15,298sf lease expansion transaction.

Before the Atlanta-based law firm of McCalla Raymer, LLC had an opportunity occupy its new 15,298sf office at 110 Tower in Downtown Fort Lauderdale, the firm exercised its pre-negotiated option to lease an additional floor.

McCalla Raymer has now leased the 24th and 25th floor or 30,596sf at the recently renovated 110 Tower.

The landlord, Genesis Capital Partners XI, Ltd., was represented by Transwestern. 110 Tower is now over 70% leased. The lease value is in excess of $5,000,000.

Source:  FREJ