JLL has appointed Managing Director Brian Smith to lead the firm’s industrial business practice in the South Florida region, further expanding JLL’s footprint in the industrial property sector.
In the role of South Florida Broker Lead, Smith will work closely with JLL’s Florida leadership to determine strategic direction for the industrial brokerage team across South Florida, identify growth opportunities and work closely with the various industrial teams in support of clients’ business goals and real estate decisions. JLL’s industrial practice benefits from a full-service platform, an experienced team of industrial real estate professionals and a global network of relationships.
JLL clients will also benefit from the region’s most in-depth research and industrial-specific resources including financial research and analytics, zoning and environmental knowledge, labor studies, transportation, connectivity and workplace strategy.
“The decades of experience, approach to client relationships and deep understating of the region’s industrial real estate market makes Brian Smith a valuable asset to our firm and we are confident as our South Florida industrial practice broker lead, he will be instrumental in leading JLL’s industrial practice in the right direction,” said JLL Managing Director Alan Kleber. “As the region emerges among the world’s most in-demand markets for industrial real estate and logistics, JLL is in a position to strengthen its position as the dominant real estate brokerage firm in South Florida.”
Some of the high-profile transactions the South Florida JLL industrial team secured this year includes representing UNFI in a 480,000-square-foot, build-to-suit deal in Sarasota, representing Prologis in two leases with Ryder totaling 310,000 square feet in Miami, advising tenant Freedom Fresh in a lease totaling 100,000 square feet in Miami, working with Withers Worldwide in securing 140,000 square feet of space in Miami, and representing AMB Codina Beacon Lakes, LLC, in the sale of 30 acres of land in Miami to UPS.
“As one of the leading brokerage real estate services firms with a global platform, our industrial team at JLL has specialized resources, technologies and talent to serve the South Florida market, which has become one of the world’s fastest-growing industrial markets,” said JLL Managing Director Brian Smith. “We see tremendous opportunity for further growth of our industrial practice at a time when clients of all sizes are seeking to maximize space efficiencies and meet their growing demand for industrial real estate and logistics services.”
Smith has cultivated important client relationships in the South Florida market and led some of the most complex industrial transactions. Over the past 20 years, he has been involved in many of the region’s largest industrial deals, handling more than $2 billion in transactions during his career. Most recently, his team completed a 550,000-square-foot lease that paves the way for Telemundo Enterprises/NBC Universal’s world headquarters and studio campus in western Miami-Dade. The JLL team also represents some of South Florida’s largest owners of industrial real estate, chief among them Prologis.
Smith has earned Society of Industrial and Office Realtors, or SIOR, designation and is a certified Global Supply Chain Solutions expert.