ORLANDO—David Pace is a journeyed real estate broker. He served seven years as director of Real Estate Development for Disney. He was responsibile for the real estate aspects of $5-plus billion worth of projects, including Celebration and Little Lake Bryan in Orlando, Val D'Europe outside Paris, and the Latin America corporate headquarters consolidation of 13 countries.

Later, Pace was managing director for Pritzker Realty Group's redevelopment of the 1,100-acre former Orlando Naval Training Center property. He assembled and led the team that created over $2 billion in value in Baldwin Park.  

GlobeSt.com caught up with Pace to talk about his decision to join CBRE as an executive vice president. Pace also shares his views on a global mixed-use comeback and his strategy for tapping into it.

GlobeSt.com: Why did you decide to join CBRE?

Pace: My background is in large-scale complex development. I’ve also been a broker for 20-plus years. I have been very successful doing consulting work in the mixed-use space. As the market begins to recover, there are a lot of folks around the world that want to create and emulate large mixed-use projects that had been occurring around the United States but stalled over the past few years.

GlobeSt.com: Large mixed-use projects do seem to be the wave of the future. We’re seeing several launch here in Miami. So you expect that to be the way forward?

Pace: I certainly do. It’s a massive worldwide macro economic trend. We can’t afford the infrastructure to develop in the sprawling random way that we have in the past. It’s been a luxury, particularly in the United States, to do sprawling developments. When you go outside of the United States and look at the development patterns, you see mixed uses by necessity all over the world. You don’t find sprawl, except from industrial.

GlobeSt.com: What challenges do you see ahead as we move toward this recovery and the resurgence of massive mixed-use projects?

Pace: As we headed into the peak, large complex mixed-use developments started to get more traction. There’s been a real push to do more of these projects from groups like the New Urbanists. But there’s been resistance from the underwriters. It was very difficult to get financing and capital.

GlobeSt.com: Why is that?

Pace: People historically didn’t understand mixed-use. You had a silo of people who understood multifamily or a silo of people who understood office or other forms of for-sale residential or even industrial or retail real estate. But within that house you didn’t typically have people that understood all of it. So underwriting was difficult.

How do I value a retail center with five-story condominiums and a hotel on top of it? As we got later into the peak in the 2006 to 2008 time frame, more people starting moving toward the massive mixed-use market and the underwriters started to get it. Now, there’s been a little bit of a fall back to the comfort zone of the more traditional silo of commercial real estate segments.

GlobeSt.com: So how do we overcome that challenge? What’s it going to take?

Pace: We need to see more of a recovery. As the capital markets recover and debt comes back, I think there will be a little bit of a challenge getting people to jump in to the most complex segment, which is the mixed-use segment. I think the sectors that will come back first are apartments, and then the classic office, industrial, and retail portfolios. I think mixed-use will have a little bit more to climb out of. But I am already seeing people wanting to get back and have a significant position.

GlobeSt.com: What’s your strategy going forward with CBRE?

Pace: I don’t know if it’s a strategy or a tactic. I have a great group of friends around the world and a surprising source that you don’t often see—a lot of planners and architects that have been deeply entrenched in the best projects out there. Unfortunately, for many of these firms, their clients fell into a state of despair. The original developers of these mixed-use projects typically ran of money. I am reaching out to this group of people to identify the best projects in the best markets and work up the chain to the people who are either in the decision making position or close to it. Then we’ll start having conversations about the value we can add.