Staubach Expands Local Brokerage Operations

The retail sector complements the seven-month-old corporate services office Staubach opened in fall 2001 at 100 S. Orange Ave. Downtown.

Carter couldn't be reached at GlobeSt.com's publication deadline to learn what leasing deals he may already have in the pipepline.

But in recruiting Carter, Staubach gets a seasoned retail quarterback who formerly was senior director of retail leasing at Faison/Landmarks Group. At Faison, Carter's team marketed and leased one million sf of retail properties throughout Central Florida.

At Colliers Arnold, Carter was director of retail sales and leasing and helped start the brokerage's retail division in Orlando. Carter has 25 years in the business.

Area brokers tell GlobeSt.com he will be facing stiff competition from established local retail services teams at CB Richard Ellis Inc., Trammell Crow Co., Grubb & Ellis Co., Coldwell Banker Commercial, MarketPlace Advisors Inc. and Cushman & Wakefield of Florida Inc.

Staubach's new office opens just as metro Orlando's 47 million-sf retail market is going through a major shakeout and realignment of strategies by neighborhood, community and regional shopping centers.

New leases are expected to be done throughout the summer and fall at the 1.3-million-sf Mall at Millenia and the 1.6-million-sf Florida Mall, both going cash register to cash register in south Orlando. Mall at Millennia is scheduled to open Sept. 1.

Florida Mall has near future plans to grow its space by another 200,000 sf. The planned $200 million Altamonte Springs Town Center is looking at a 2004 opening date.

In neighboring Lake, Volusia and Osceola counties, new retail components are being tacked on to major mixed-use and resort projects, all of it open to competitive bidding from brokers seeking to represent tenants or property owners.

Smaller centers are also gearing up. For example, the 100,000-sf Eustis Village, 35 miles north of Downtown Orlando, is preparing for a year end ground breaking adjacent to the new $250 million, two-million-sf Florida Waterman Hospital campus on U.S. 441 in Tavares, FL.

"It's a great time to be a retail broker in Central Florida, but I sure wouldn't want to be in it at this time without contacts and connections," a longtime retail broker who has switched to industrial tells GlobeSt.com on condition of anonymity. "The ride would be too rough."