After completing more industrial projects in the Orlando area than any other development company in 2022, Orlando-based Cadence Partners was named Developer of the Year Thursday night at the Best of the Best awards gala hosted by NAIOP.
The annual ceremony held at the Alfond Inn honored the past year’s top brokers, land deals, developers, and development projects. Sarah Kelly, a NAIOP member for two decades who also served a 22-year stint as vice president of the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) of Orlando, received the Lifetime Achievement award for her work with NAIOP, the commercial real estate industry, and the city of Orlando.
The multifamily deal of the year involved 55 West, a 461-unit, 32-story apartment tower located in downtown Orlando that sold in February of 2022 for $150.2 million. Institutional Property Advisors’ Orlando multifamily team of Shelton Granade, Luke Wickham, and Justin Basquill brokered that deal. Granade took home the award for top multifamily sales broker.
The $44.25 million sale last April of 130 acres on Old Lake Wilson Road in Osceola County won land deal of the year. The property, originally intended to host a luxury resort, was rezoned to allow for an industrial park. and then purchased by Bridge Investment Group. CBRE’s Robert McEwan, Michael McEwan and Austin Weller represented the seller in the deal.
But the night’s top prize went to Cadence Partners, which recently wrapped work on two industrial projects totaling 310,523 square feet. The company, led by Todd Watson, has another 2.6 million square feet of warehouse space either under construction or in the permitting phase across the Orlando market.
Projects completed in 2022 include Western Beltway, a 190,284-square-foot class A distribution park located at 2550 Ocoee Apopka Road in Apopka, and a 120,229-square-foot warehouse for moving company Ace Relocation at 8695 Transport Drive.
“I think it’s a credit to all the people that helped make our project successful — down from the brokers who brought us the deals, to the consultants that help us design it, to the contractors and helped us build it, and ultimately, the tenants that came in and and made it successful,” Watson said.
Projects under construction by Cadence Partners include the Northstar Logistics Park, which will soon cover 761,240 square feet in Apopka.
Cadence Partners has also been tabbed to build out the industrial component of a massive mixed-use project in the works for Apopka’s Kelly Park Interchange District.
According to an application pending approval by the city, Cadence is poised to construct 1.6 million square feet across nine warehouse buildings in Wyld Oaks, a long-awaited village center concept with shops, restaurants, and multifamily housing that will stretch across 230 acres on S.R. 429.
“Everything along Apopka, I think, is gonna continue to do well,” Watson told GrowthSpotter. “It’s also credit to that city. They’re friendly. They’ve got a good master plan, and they want to get deals done.”
Evans Properties is the master developer of the mixed-use project that calls for 2,900 apartments and over a million square feet of retail and commercial space.
Industrial activity continued its explosion across the Orlando market in 2022. As of December, over 9.4 million square feet of warehouse space was under construction with 35.2% of development pre-leased, according to a recent report by Avison Young.
At the NAIOP awards ceremony Thursday, Link Logistics Real Estate and its partner Blue Steel Development won industrial development of the year for its Luminar at Axcess Park at 33rd project. The project, located along L.B. McLeod Road near Mall at Millenia in Orlando, consists of 450,025 square feet of warehouse space across three buildings.
Meanwhile, Tavistock Development Company won office development of the year and office deal of the year for projects in Lake Nona.
For office development of the year, the company was recognized for its five-story 68,398-square-foot mixed-use office complex in the Lake Nona Town Center. The building includes ground-floor retail with four upper levels of 63,540 square feet of devoted class-A boutique office space. For office deal of the year, Tavistock was awarded for securing KPMG as a tenant for more than 74,000 square feet of office space at its Lake Nona Town Center HQ Office located at 6820 Marwick Lane.
Retail deal of the year went to Colliers International for its involvement in a plan by Lifetime Fitness to move into a 90,000-square-foot facility at 1225 Bennett Ave. in Winter Park.
Individual honors went to:
Top Industrial Leasing Broker: Monica Wonus, CBRE
Top Industrial Sales Broker: David Murphy, CBRE
Top Office Leasing Broker:Mike Phipps, CBRE
Top Office Sales Broker: Ron Rogg, CBRE
Top Retail Leasing Broker: James Mitchell, CBRE
Top Retail Sales Broker: Brad Peterson, Colliers
Top Multifamily Broker: Shelton Granade, IPA
Top Financing Broker: Michael Weinberg, Berkadia
Top Land sales Broker: (Tie) Andy Slowick and Margery Johnson, Cushman & Wakefield
Volunteer of the Year: Trevor Hall, Colliers International
Have a tip about Central Florida development? Contact me at (407)-800-1161 or dwyatt@GrowthSpotter.com. Follow GrowthSpotter on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
