Big Deals

Randal Mercer, CB Richard Ellis, Fort Myers

With more than 20 years in the region's market, and as a partner in the Fort Myers CB Richard Ellis office, Randal Mercer specializes in the office market and investment property, although he also gets involved in some industrial and land transactions. "Wherever my clients require me to be, that's where I'll be," he says.

His biggest transaction for 2003 was the $5.2 million sale of a 56,000-square-foot office building on north Metro Parkway, at the Metro Park Executive Center. "We leased and managed the building for several years, stabilized the revenue, the income, and sold it to a group out of Hialeah, and we're still representing them in the marketplace for the remaining space that is vacant," Mercer says.

What does he do right? "I think I'm a very organized, computer-literate broker with a lot of empathy for my customers' needs," he says. "One of the survival keys is being able to cut to the chase and represent your clients. Honesty is a big virtue in our business, and people who have survived over any length of time in any business have a certain degree of professionalism and excellent reputation that allows you to get referral business, and allows you to keep the clients you have."

And, he adds, "I work a lot. That probably has as much to do with success as anything. But if I were to pick one thing out of the mix it's listening to your clients."

Gary Tasman, Grubb & Ellis|VIP

Gary Tasman has been in the business since 1983, locally since 1995, and with Grubb & Ellis|VIP in Fort Myers for about six years. His niche is commercial and investment sales and leasing.

"My competency is adding value to commercial real estate by analyzing the property's operating statement, and finding ways to increase the net operating income," he says. "We identify markets and opportunities in the market for investors so they can feel comfortable about assuming the risks that the property will lease up as projected."

For example, he helps prospective landlords buy vacant buildings and reposition them in the market, or he guides investors in buying vacant land, developing it and leasing out the building. He also analyzes sites for potential users and helps in negotiations.

His biggest transaction in the past year was the listing and sale of land in Naples, for a total of $24 million.

Tasman points to the seven people on his sales team as his strength. They allow him "to keep buyers and investors and tenants and users all abreast of the most current trends and activities in the business," he says. "Second is superior negotiating skills to help develop win-win strategies for tenants, landlords, buyers and sellers."

Greg Toth, Select Real Estate by Stephanie Miller

As vice president of select real estate by Stephanie Miller in Estero, Greg Toth doesn't just broker real estate deals; he also shares in ownership of many of the properties. His biggest sole transaction in 2003 was the $5 million sale of 36 acres at Koreshan and Three Oaks, in which he is a principal.

"That's the difference. Although we do some brokerage, we do a lot of our business as principals or managing partners. We have investors, but we're generally an ownership partner of almost every deal that we do," says Toth, who has 23 years, eight full-time, in local commercial real estate.

He specializes in "acquisitions and entitlements for property, zonings, the development orders," and his particular interest is Estero, an area Miller targeted some time ago. "The area is our niche and, past that, we pretty much tackle everything. We do raw land, we do development, we do package deals for investors," he adds. "We do office, retail, flex space. We're involved in all the different facets of that."

Toth's strength, in business and as a member of the Estero Planning Panel, is the ability to compromise, he says. In Estero, the private sector, including developers, the people who live there and the county "are all working together to get a better product in Estero. The trick in getting those three entities together is for everyone to be open for compromise."

That carries over to real estate, he says. "Whatever people say, there's still a political edge left to zoning and entitlements to properties, and you would like to satisfy not only the county, but the community it's going in, and the investor. You have to compromise all the way around to make it a good deal for everyone involved."