®
oundtable:
Changing dynamics Segment leaders discuss their performance over the past year and the progress of key projects.
Lloyd Berger
President Berger Commercial Realty
How has Commercial Realty performed in the past year? Prior to COVID-19, from a real estate standpoint, everything was peaking. We had run out of quality space in most of our food groups. As the pandemic hit, we experienced three dry months but ever since we got past that hurdle, business has been booming. We are collecting well over 90% of our rents from our managed portfolio, which totals about 8.5 million square feet. We are increasing that average every month compared to the prior month. Which asset class is spearheading demand? Industrial is taking the cake in terms of asset demand, but our class-B office has done surprisingly well. Due to the pandemic’s prevalent uncertainty, people are waiting to the last minute to make decisions. Class-B and smaller class-A are more affordable and allow people to spend less time on elevators, which is key given the pandemic. All these factors have made this kind of asset more desirable to the few office tenants that are in the market. How is your firm setting itself apart? We have always positioned ourselves as the alternative to the national firm, providing local market knowledge. Real estate is a local business at its core and we are much better positioned to cater to our clients’ needs and what they need from us as opposed to larger firms. That is how we have grown. We have 64 professionals in Berger Commercial Realty and our multifamily company, Andrews Avenue Residential, counts about 25 people. We are at a size that can provide good quality products to our clients but not so large that we cannot provide what they want on a more personal, case-by-case basis. 76
| Invest: Greater Fort Lauderdale 2021 | REAL ESTATE
Daniel Chaberman
Co-Founder Grupo Eco (Atlantic Village)
What progress has been made on the development of Atlantic Village? We’ve finished phase two. Atlantic Village is a threephase lifestyle, mixed-use project with an emphasis on restaurants and food and beverage (F&B) on the ground floor, service retail tenants and entertainment tenants on the second floor, plus two office buildings. Our boutique office building was completed earlier this year as part of phase two. A corporate center will be constructed in phase three. For phase three, besides the restaurants on the ground floor, the idea is to introduce beauty concepts, to create a sort of wellness center, not with one operator but with multiple operators. On top of that, we’ll have the corporate center, which is a class-A, 65,000-square-foot office space. In the back of it, we have a parking garage with three levels of parking. What are the competitive advantages of Atlantic Village in the area? This is a very competitive market. But that being said, we are south of Fort Lauderdale and North of Aventura. We are in Hallandale, which is a centrally located city, a small city surrounded by wealthy cities with high income and demographics, such as Aventura, Sunny Isles Beach and Hollywood. We are five minutes from Aventura and Hollywood and 15 minutes away from Sunny Isles Beach. We are also very close to Fort Lauderdale, between a 20- and 25-minute drive. We are meticulous about the type of tenants that we want to bring onboard. We make sure that the tenants that we bring make sense not only for the development but also for the market itself.
