On fire

Call it coincidence, call it a case of market timing, whatever — the office and industrial capital markets crew at Cushman & Wakefield is “en fuego,” on fire.

Not that Mike Davis, Rick Brugge and Michael Lerner planned to have 4 million square feet worth of deals close around the same time this summer.

“This business ebbs and flows,” says Davis, 55, a 27-year Cushman veteran and its executive director of capital markets — investment sales and acquisitions for office and industrial space in Tampa. “When opportunity knocks, you have to do whatever you have to do.”

“It wasn't a matter of if it was all going to get done, it was just how painful was it going to be,” adds Lerner, 47, a Cushman senior director who re-joined the firm five years ago from the predecessor to Banyan Street Capital.

Just as impressive, the trio's six deals — which included the sale of the nine-story Westshore Center in Tampa, the Imagine Schools at Palmer Ranch building in Sarasota, the Primera III offices in Orlando and the Wells Fargo Plaza in Boca Raton — were spread throughout Florida.

Nor were they only office deals: One sale involved 34 industrial buildings in five business parks in St. Petersburg, while another traded the nearly 1 million-square-foot Tampa Distribution Center.

“We hit every major market in the state,” says Brugge, 46, a Cushman senior director who has been with the firm for eight years. “It required a lot of perseverance.”

The portfolio sale of the Gateway Business Center, Joe's Creek Industrial Park, Gateway Business Park, Westbay Corporate Center and Metropointe Commerce Park, for instance, took a year to complete.

“Together, we're better than what we can do individually,” Davis says. “We're big believers in the team approach, and we view this business as a marathon, not a sprint.”
All three also credit Cushman's support staff of financial analysts, graphic designers and marketing specialists.

None will likely have any rest soon, either. The trio say they could close $1 billion worth of transactions this year, roughly double the $500 million in 22 deals closed in 2014. But they aren't focusing on the numbers.

“The most important thing isn't volume, it's customer satisfaction,” Davis says. “If you have that, you'll have enough volume to last the next 20 years.”

A Sampling of Deals
Property: Westshore Center, Tampa
Price: $40 million
Size: 9 floors, 216,410 square feet

Property: Tampa Distribution
Center, Tampa
Price: $43.4 million
Size: 955,000 square feet

Property: Fleeman Family Trust portfolio, St. Petersburg
Price: $103 million
Size: 34 buildings totaling 1.66
million square feet

Property: Primera III, Orlando
Price: $22.65 million
Size: 152,928 square feet