Ripco Real Estate Acquires Miami-Based Retail Brokerage Acre
In case this helps for art: Acre has closed deals such as Nike Rise at Aventura Mall and Tacombi throughout Miami, including the Design District. Also, Acre worked on behalf of Steve Ross’ Related Companies on repositioning CityPlace in downtown West Palm Beach
Ripco Real Estate acquired Miami-based retail brokerage Acre, marking the latest shake-up in South Florida’s commercial services industry.
Four-broker Acre folded into the much larger Ripco. The deal allows Acre to tap into Ripco’s institutional-like resources, and Ripco to expand its reach in South Florida’s retail industry, according to brokers from both firms. Ripco and Acre declined to provide the acquisition’s value.
New York-based Ripco, founded in 1991, has 150 brokers and 40 support staff members and eight offices, six of them in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The firm’s business lines are landlord and tenant representation for retail leasing, investment sales across asset classes, retail property management, and debt and equity advisory services, said Ripco President Mark Kaplan.
Ripco first opened offices in Tampa and Miami in 2021, amid an influx of New Yorkers and other out-of-staters to Florida that fueled a market boom.
“More and more of our clients in New York wanted to work in Florida, so that pushed our offices in Miami and Tampa,” Kaplan said. Acre is “a really strong boutique firm that’s very similar to how Ripco operates, just on a small scale.”
Founded in 2015, Acre is led by Marty Arrivo and Aracibo Quintana and includes brokers Elizabeth Higgins and Sam Paniello. The brokers moved from Acre’s former office at 100 Biscayne Boulevard in downtown Miami to Ripco’s space at 1221 Brickell Avenue in nearby Brickell.
In 2017, Acre started working on behalf of Steve Ross’ Related Companies as a broker and consultant on repositioning the CityPlace mixed-use complex in downtown West Palm Beach. Related completed CityPlace in 2000 and sought to revamp the 72-acre development at the end of the last decade with the addition of offices and apartments and repositioning the retail. As work progressed, CityPlace was rechristened Rosemary Square in 2019 and then The Square in 2021. Last week, Related opted to bring back the complex’s original name, rebranding it again as CityPlace.
“When we started our work, it was a district-wide strategic effort to reposition the entire 600,000 square feet of retail space. Re-tenant and re-merchandise all of the food and beverage, fashion and home [goods] tenants throughout the district,” Arrivo said. “Through that effort, a separate work stream was the rebranding exercise that took place.”
Acre’s consulting work also included the layout of CityPlace’s retail. To describe the scope of the consulting services, Arrivo said: “How do we reconfigure the different components of this, so you then lease it?”
Tenants that opened at CityPlace in recent years include furniture stores Design Within Reach and West Elm, Anthropologie and lululemon, and restaurant Sweetgreen.
Acre also represented New York-based taqueria Tacombi in its debut in South Florida, with outposts in the Miami Design District and Wynwood. Tacombi opened in Brickell last week. Acre also represented Nike nationwide and worked as a company consultant, leading to the debut of the Nike Rise store at Aventura Mall.
Ripco’s South Florida deals include representing New York-based celebrity restaurant Philippe by Philippe Chow in leasing a space at the One Ocean condo building in South Beach. Robert Rivani’s Black Lion Investment Group owns the ground-floor restaurant space. This year, Ripco brokered the $19.5 million refinancing of Pebb Enterprises’ shopping plaza at 5024-5070 West Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach.
RIipco’s acquisition of Acre comes after the firm bought New York-based real estate firm Branded Concept Development’s brokerage division in 2022. BCD focuses on restaurant leasing.
Ripco is experiencing growth in its retail property management division, which is only in the New York metro area, Kaplan said. Elevated interest rates and other macroeconomic headwinds have curtailed investment sales, leading owners to seek property managers to run day-to-day operations. Also, special servicers increasingly are interested in property management and leasing services as they work through sponsors’ debt woes.
Ripco’s acquisition of Acre is the latest shake-up in South Florida’s commercial real estate industry. In June, a five-member team led by Robert Given jumped from Cushman & Wakefield to CBRE.
Hialeah-based ViVO Real Estate Group, led by Rene Vivo, entered expansion mode this year and acquired Doral-based commercial brokerage Jacog Advisors. A former State Street Realty industrial team led by Frank Trelles also jumped to ViVO.
Quintana, of Acre, said that South Florida’s market boom has propelled the tri-county region as a leader in the nationwide retail real estate landscape. Acre’s merger with Ripco allows it to adapt and gain access to institutional support for deals.
“As clients’ demands have heightened and the focus on Florida has increased, we said, ‘We need to be better and very quickly to continue to service our clients like Nike, etc. in the way they are being serviced in other metropolitan areas in the country.”
