Retail Specialist SRS Expands Push Into Industrial With New Miami Office

SRS Real Estate Partners is launching an industrial brokerage in Miami as the firm looks to leverage its retail expertise into the warehouse and distribution space. 

Courtesy of SRS Real Estate Partners

Andrew Lehrer, Wayne Schuchts and Michael Palmer are launching SRS Real Estate Partners’ industrial presence in Miami.

The three-person Miami team will be led by Wayne Schuchts, who is joining SRS as a managing principal, with Andrew Lehrer and Michael Palmer coming to the firm as vice presidents.

The Miami office is the fourth industrial brokerage nationally for SRS as the Dallas-based retail specialist looks to establish a presence in the space. 

“The addition of this team and the creation of a Miami office will be a game changer in Florida for SRS,” Chris Maguire, chairman and CEO at SRS, said in a statement. “We have been looking for the right opportunity to enhance our capabilities in Orlando, Tampa and Fort Lauderdale, and adding this seasoned industrial team will make a significant impact in the state.”

The warehouse imprint, called SRS Industrial, launched last April in Dallas. Last month, the firm added a five-person team in Atlanta and brought in a managing principal to lead its Southern California presence. The firm is also planning to add industrial operations in New Jersey and Chicago, Schuchts said in an interview Wednesday.

Schuchts is joining SRS from Avison Young and has three decades of experience negotiating more than $5B in transactions spanning more than 12M SF, according to a release. 

Lehrer was previously at Flagler Global Logistics, a Miami-based industrial developer owned by Brightline passenger rail operator Florida East Coast Industries. His nearly 20-year career includes more than $2B in transactions and the handling of 11M SF for institutional landlords.  

Palmer previously worked with Schuchts at Avison Young and brings seven years of experience working with institutional investors, family offices and corporate occupiers.

Among the Florida team’s first assignments will be the lease-up of the second phase of Ironwood Commerce Center on the site of the former Opa-Locka Hialeah Flea Market, Schuchts said. 

The 740K SF development is expected to break ground before the end of the year on 43 acres at 12691 Northwest LeJeune Road. The six-warehouse development slated for delivery in 2025 is being built by Link Logistics, which was established by investment giant Blackstone in 2019. 

SRS Industrial’s presence in the state will initially be focused in South Florida, but Schuchts said he expects to grow the firm beyond the tri-county area. SRS also has offices in Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Orlando, and it expanded its Florida retail presence in June with the acquisition of Meridian Retail Group in Tampa. 

“We’re going to figure out the smart way to grow an industrial-focused business, which the tenant side of it we can probably largely run from Miami,” Schuchts said. “But as we expand our institutional agency landlord business, we will need to be local for those clients.” 

SRS Industrial is led by Brant Landry, who worked with Schuchts at the real estate firm The Staubach Co. before it was acquired by JLL in 2008. The firm’s retail imprint, Staubach Retail Services, was co-founded by Maguire in 1986 and wasn’t part of the JLL deal. It changed its name to SRS Real Estate Partners in 2013. 

SRS has 25 offices around the country, with more than 285 staff representing more than 830 clients. Maguire began to explore a push into industrial brokerage earlier in the pandemic when the SRS’ retail clients began approaching him to help with the rollout of e-commerce and warehouse operations, Schuchts said.  

“It’s kind of like, you know, putting peanut butter and chocolate together and ending up with Reese’s Cups,” Schuchts said. “The board agreed, and they went out and recruited a person who I knew at Staubach, Brant Landry, to come in and do a national rollout and run a parallel path.”