Bus Tour To Highlight Several Properties For Brokers Lenders

By Marilyn Bowden
About 30 Miami-Dade County business properties will be highlighted next week during a bus tour sponsored by the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties.

Four buses will escort 175 to 200 brokers, property owners, attorneys, professional service officials, mortgage brokers and lenders through the county Oct. 29, said Michael Silver, a first vice president at CB Richard Ellis who is chairman of the event.

Similar tours of Palm Beach and Broward counties are planned.

"Every year, we try to go to different areas and see different projects," Mr. Silver said. "For example, this year on the industrial side, we will be visiting Seaboard/Gratigny Industrial Park, which we haven’t done in the past and which we think is worthwhile."

After deciding on areas to highlight, Mr. Silver said, the organization’s Miami-Dade Bus Tour Committee selects properties from among those submitted for inclusion. This year, he said, the tour will begin at Palmetto Bay Village Center in South Dade and circle through the Medley area, Miami Lakes, the Seaboard/Gratigny park, downtown Miami, Brickell, Airport West and Coral Gables.

Owners pay a sponsorship fee, he said, to get their properties on the tour on a sliding scale depending on the amount of coverage they want. A walkthrough gets 15 minutes inside the first-floor lobby for a presentation.

For a stop at a site, buses go as close to the building as possible and a sponsor speaks about the property. Drive-throughs of single-owner parks or campuses take the participants around the property without stopping.

Mr. Silver said each owner-sponsor must provide prizes of $100 to $350, to be distributed either on site or at a cocktail party following the event.

Check-in is at 7 am, he said, with breakfast at Flagler Station and lunch at 800 Brickell, where Frank Nero, executive director of the Beacon Council, and a representative from Miami’s Downtown Development Authority will speak.

There is a mid-afternoon ice-cream stop scheduled at the Bank of America Tower @ International Place, 100 SW Second Ave. Traffic permitting, Mr. Silver said, the tour will return at 5 p.m. to Palmetto Bay for a Halloween-themed cocktail party that has become a tradition in the past several years. He said NAIOP awards a $500 prize for best costume.

Scott Silver, a principal of Grouper Financial, which is developing Palmetto Bay Village Center at the site of the former Burger King headquarters, 17777 Old Cutler Road, said the tour and party provide an unusual opportunity to introduce properties to a wide swath of area brokers.

"We’re new to the market," he said. "When Burger King was here, it was a well-kept secret as to what was here. Over the past year since we closed on the property, we’ve been bringing tenant prospects down here to see it, and we’ve hosted broker events, but never for 200 of them at one time. Once they come down here and realize this is a real alternative for the south end of the county, then hopefully they will come back with their clients."

Mr. Silver said he has been working on the tour for three months.

"It’s a big effort," he said. "We have to take into account traffic patterns where these properties are located, whether they warrant a walk-through or a drive-through, whether there is construction in the area, and then figure out where we are going to be at what time and write detailed schedules for the bus drivers. We have to put together books for the brokers containing fact sheets and brochures for each property on the tour. It’s not so easy.

"But at the end of the day it’s very gratifying. Our members have a chance to network with out-of-state landlords of large properties or their representatives, and to make a lot of new contacts. And everyone has fun along the way."

Fees for the Miami-Dade tour are $75 for NAIOP members and $100 for non-members.Details: John Parr, (954) 938-2137.