Casto Southeast hires manager for Midtown Tampa

            Casto Southeast Realty Services has tapped a veteran shopping center manager to oversee the retail space within the 22-acre Midtown Tampa development and co-ordinate the mix of uses in the $500 million project.

            As general manager, Kathleen Hacksaw will integrate the project’s eventual four office buildings, its 400-unit apartment complex, hotel and parking, the master developer of which is New York-based Bromley Cos.

            Hacksaw also will be in charge of the property’s shared common spaces, marketing, facilities maintenance, security, the project’s parking management and developing strong relationships with tenants.

            Most notably, she will directly oversee day-to-day operations of the more than 200,000 square feet of retail space within the project, which is being jointly developed by Casto and JR Anderson Real Estate, of Ohio, and is slated to debut in February.

Midtown Tampa will feature retailers such as REI, Whole Foods Mark, True Food Kitchen and Ponte Group Restaurant, among others. The retail space is currently 80% leased.

“In a complicated, mixed-use project such as this, you need someone to bring all the elements together and co-ordinate it all,” says Pat Westerhouse, a Casto Southeast vice president. “And Kathy has a very experience background; she’s done it all.”

Prior to joining Casto Southeast, Hackshaw worked as director of retail operations for Bloomfield Holdings in Jackson, Miss., and held executive jobs with Chelsea Property Group and JTS Realty. In all, she has more than a quarter century of commercial real estate industry experience.

In addition to Bromley, JR Anderson and Casto Southeast, a Lakewood Ranch-based firm that  has developed more than three million square feet of retail space and thousands of residences in Florida, North Carolina and elsewhere, Midtown Tampa’s developers include Crescent Communities, Concord Hospitality and Highwoods Properties Inc.