The “Leader of the Pack” awards, recognizing commercial real estate brokers, will be given out Oct. 25 at the second annual Back to Business event presented by the Michigan chapter of CBOR and Ford Land. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder will keynote the event at the Dearborn Inn in Dearborn, Mich., and will also arrive early for a meet-and-greet session.
This year’s award winners are:
Office Lease of the Year: Garrett Keais, a broker with Southfield based Signature Associates, for his work on the 95,000-square-foot lease for Flagstar Bank in Troy, Mich., at the Officecentre building. The lease was a creative solution for Flagstar, moving its growing mortgage unit into space formerly used by the mortgage group of Bank of America.
Industrial Lease of the Year: Randall Allman, first vice president of CBRE Group Inc. in Southfield, for his work on a 480,000-square-foot industrial lease at Gateway Industrial Center in Detroit. On behalf of the landlord, Allman was part of the team that signed Detroit Manufacturing Systems LLC, the newly created joint venture between Rush Group and Faurecia North America Inc.
Retail Lease of the Year: John Davis, sales and leasing manager with Ford Motor Land Development Corp., for his work on a 38,500-square-foot lease to TechShop Inc. in Allen Park, Mich. To draw TechShop to the space, a deal was set up to make memberships for the do-it-yourself space available to Ford Motor Co. employees. It was combined with a creative lease allowing Ford to use parts of the building in common with TechShop.
Investment Deal of the Year: Gary Glotzhober and John Lominack, principals in the Southfield office of Colliers International, for the sale of 909 Sheldon Rd. in Plymouth at an asking price of $7.5 million. Lominack represented the seller, while Glotzhober brought the buyer to the deal. They created a plan for this obsolete space to be used in the future and have been retained to represent the space.
Economic Development Deal of the Year: Oakland County Economic Development Corp. for work on the Teijin Advanced Composites America deal. Considering a deal in Ohio, the Japanese auto supplier instead landed in Auburn Hills at 1200 Harmon Rd. With an $11 million investment, the company’s only U.S. office is now in metro Detroit.
Rookie of the Year: Brendan Cavender, a broker at Colliers International. Cavender has been involved with 175 deals in Ann Arbor, including the sale of the 65,000 square foot former Ann Arbor News building, the lease of 48,000 square feet of space to Barracuda Networks, involvement in a 227,000 square foot mixed use project in the downtown area and 11 other downtown building sales.
REALTOR of the Year: Mark Szerlag, partner at Thomas A. Duke Co. Szerlag, the outgoing president of CBOR, is being recognized for leadership in the commercial real estate community. He has completed over $500 million in commercial real estate sales in his 23 years as a broker. In addtion to CBOR, he’s on the board of directors of Certified Commercial Investment Members (CCIM), a member of the Urban Land Institute (ULI), International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) and the Lyon Area Rotary.
