Cushman & Wakefield adds high-profile pair to Tampa industrial team

Commercial real estate brokerage firm Cushman & Wakefield has added a pair of industrial leasing and sales specialists to its Tampa roster, in the wake of the recent loss of Managing Director Julia Silva Rettig to rival JLL.

Trey Carswell and Lisa Ross join Cushman & Wakefield from commercial real estate brokerage Avison Young’s Tampa operation, where the pair have worked as a team since 2015.

They say that while Canadian-based Avison Young – one of the fastest-growing brokerage operations in the world – offered many benefits, Cushman & Wakefield’s capital markets dominance in Central Florida gave it the edge.

“Their capital markets platform and the leadership there from Mike Davis and his team really appealed to us,” says Carswell.

“Institutional clients love to have a capital markets component to their leasing and landlord services that brokerages offer, and we just didn’t have that to that extent at Avison Young,” Ross says.

Both Ross and Carswell, who will be senior directors at Cushman & Wakefield, add that they hope to grow their client base and better service their existing roster of clients at Cushman & Wakefield.

“We’re joining a very strong industrial practice, and we hope to use the opportunity to grow this market with the clients we have now,” Ross says.

While at Avison Young, the duo oversaw leasing for a portfolio containing six million square feet of space for clients such as MetLife, EastGroup Properties, IP Capital Partners and Link Industrial Properties, among others.

At Cushman & Wakefield, they will specialize in landlord representation and integrate services with an existing four-person Tampa industrial team.

Prior to joining Avison Young, Carswell worked at Commercial Partners Realty, GVA Advantis, Trammell Crow Co. and Lane, Witherspoon & Carswell Commercial Real Estate Advisors, where he was a founding partner. That firm was sold to Avison Young in 2013.

Ross’ experience includes stints at industrial behemoth Prologis Trust and Taylor & Mathis, a brokerage firm Cushman & Wakefield acquired four years ago.

Rettig, who led Cushman & Wakefield’s industrial operation for six years, joined JLL earlier this month to co-direct its statewide industrial capital markets activities