On February 25th NAIOP’s Annual Awards of Excellence event took place, with over 13 categories to be awarded to South Florida market professionals and entities.
Butters was nominated for 4 categories, and won the following 3 awards:
Renovation/ Rehab project of the year– University Place at City Center: Located at 3111 N. University Dr. in Coral Springs, the property was about 20% occupied at the time Butters and Bristol team acquired it out of foreclosure in the summer of 2013. The building presented many problems including elevator systems deterioration, inefficient spaces, physical wear and tear. The 204,000 Square Foot building was renamed to “University Place at City Center” and began its multi-million dollar renovation including the lobby, all common areas, bathrooms, elevators, building entry design and retail facade. The Butters team focused on leasing the available spaces landing its first large tenant Sutherland Global Services while the property was still under contract. The building is now underway to being 75% occupied by year end.
Developer of the year- Having developed over 1 million square feet in 2015 alone, across Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, Butters Construction and Development took this award for the 5th time. Butters has acquired land and developed, or acquired existing buildings and redeveloped them into high quality, institutional grade assets. A sample of challenging development project from 2015 was the Hillsboro Technology Center- 250,000 Sq. Ft. in Deerfield Beach
This industrial project presented specific challenges involving a land use change, zoning change, environmental clean up and considerable offsite traffic improvements. In addition Butters worked with neighboring residential areas to persuade them that the project was of benefit to the area and community.
Broker of the Year- Darcie Lunsford: In 2013 Darcie became a full time medical and office broker with Butters after starting out as a Director of Business Development. As a newspaper and television reporter for 22 years, Darcie covered the deals, she viewed commercial real estate as an outsider looking in as a senior editor at the South Florida Business Journal. In 2015, as a broker at Butters, Darcie leased and sold 185,000 square feet of office spaces, representing a total aggregate value of approximately $20 million. Darcie Lunsford is also Power Broker many times over, the latest awarded in 2015.
The Butters Team is honored to have received these 3 pretigious awards and want to congratulate all other nominees and winners of the 2015 Awards of Excellence.