Former CBRE Tampa head lands at Fore

Chase Pattillo, the former head of brokerage services for commercial real estate brokerage firm CBRE Inc.’s Tampa office, has been hired by multifamily developer Fore Property Co. to open and lead its Tampa operation.

As a Fore vice president, Pattillo will charged with finding apartment sites from Naples to Tampa and east to Lakeland.

“This is an opportunity for me to get back on the principal side, rather than be on the management side,” Pattillo says, contrasting Fore with CBRE. “Fore has a different capital structure, they build quality projects, they do a lot of due diligence on their sites and they’re good to their word.”

Fore’s decision to open a Tampa office — its ninth as a company — follows more than a decade of developing and constructing apartments in Central Florida from a hub in Orlando.

The company also maintains offices in Washington, D.C.; Las Vegas; Portland, Ore; Houston; Phoenix; and two in California, according to its website.

In all, the company has developed about 25,000 apartments in 38 cities nationwide.

“They like what’s happening in Tampa and they want to drive a stake in the ground there, so to speak,” Pattillo says. “They understand what’s driving multifamily development there. Tampa remains in a very good trajectory, as does Orlando, and we expect the job growth and corporate relocations that have been occurring in recent years to continue.”

Pattillo acknowledges that the multifamily development market in Central and Southwest Florida is “competitive,” but that company rivalries are often offset by “changing dynamics” in the rental business, such as co-working and the influence of technology.

“There’s changing renter profile, especially in Florida,” Pattillo says. “People are renting by choice, and more and more people are working out of their homes but they want a lifestyle that’s amenity heavy.”

Pattillo has worked for HFF, Flagler Development Co. and Jacksonville-based EverBank, but most recently, he was managing director of CBRE’s Tampa office, where he directed 30 brokers and a support staff that generated about $25 million in revenue annually.

At Fore, Pattillo has already begun scouting out properties for new apartment projects.

“There are a couple of sites we’re kicking the tires on, we’ll just have to see if anything comes of them,” he says.