Cushman & Wakefield bolsters valuation team with Beshears

Commercial real estate brokerage firm Cushman & Wakefield has significantly expanded its valuation and advisory team through the addition of Beshears & Associates, a Tampa-based appraisal firm.

With the merger of the 10-member Beshears, Cushman & Wakefield now has 30 valuation professionals in Florida and will be able to enhance its capabilities and coverage area, the company says.

Scott Garlick, Cushman & Wakefield’s managing director in Tampa, says valuation is a “key component of our comprehensive platform of services” and that Beshears’ addition will “further solidify our reputation as a leader in the Florida market.”

Beshears, which joined the brokerage in mid-October, is expected to work closely with Cushman & Wakefield’s capital markets and investor services teams to “provide detailed insights on real estate values,” according to a company statement.

“Cushman has a broader platform and as a result we’ve already seen opportunities that we had not had before as a boutique operation on our own,” says David Beshears, who joins Cushman & Wakefield as an executive director.

For Beshears, the decision to partner up after 25 years in business is also a sort of homecoming. He worked for Cushman & Wakefield’s capital markets group as an investment broker in the early 1990s — his second job after graduating from college.

“That was a time when brokerage wasn’t especially lucrative, so I made the decision to go into appraisal work,” says Beshears, 56. “But I always maintained a lot of respect for Cushman & Wakefield, so the move back was a comfortable one for me, and I feel like it’s also a great move for our team because of how they’ll be able to grow.”

Beshears’ group is expected to work on a variety of large portfolios nationwide, but the firm’s particular expertise is in convenience stores, limited-service hotels, self-storage projects and manufactured home communities, says Jeff Smith, the Southeast Market Leader for Cushman & Wakefield’s valuation and advisory group.

In all, Cushman & Wakefield’s valuation and advisory group comprises nearly 2,000 professionals globally, who last year worked on roughly 253,000 properties valued in excess of $3 trillion.