May 2025 | Mike Vogel
SPOTLIGHT
Toronto-based Inkas will build a factory to make armored vehicles in Fort Pierce. The company refits vehicles with tech and ballistic materials for global markets including the corporate, executive, luxury, cash-moving and law enforcement arena under the tagline “where luxury meets security.” The company will renovate and expand a vacant tomato packing facility and employ 294 at 107% of the county’s average wage. St. Lucie County approved tax exemptions and other incentives for Inkas.
HEALTH CARE
- Two years after a ribbon-cutting celebrating completion of its headquarters in Sunrise, health insurance brokerage Enhance Health, a company that assisted people in enrolling in “affordable marketplace health insurance plans,” is closing the office and laying off 196.
- Philanthropist David Husman donated $20 million to Nova Southeastern University in Davie to fund Lou Gehrig’s Disease/ ALS research by establishing NSU Health’s David and Cathy Husman Neuroscience Institute, a Cathy J. Husman ALS Center and the David and Cathy Husman Endowed Chair for Neuroscience. David Husman lost his wife, Cathy, to ALS in 2023.
HOSPITALITY
- London-based private equity firm Henderson Park, in a joint venture with Virginia-based Salamander and Charleston-and Charlotte-based South Street Partners, acquired for $425 million the 360-room PGA National Resort and its 99 holes of golf in Palm Beach Gardens from a Brookfield Asset Management real estate fund.
- Archer Capital Group’s Home2Suites hotel project received approval from the Loxahatchee Groves town council.
OFFICE
- A Miami and Dallas investor group paid $220 million for the 23-story, 410,561-sq.-ft. Bank of America Plaza office tower on Las Olas in downtown Fort Lauderdale. A Deutsche Bank asset management partnership was the seller. The buyers were affiliates of Lone Star Real Estate Fund, Highline Real Estate Capital and Square2 Capital.
- Separately, Chicago-based Bradford Allen Investment Advisors paid $208 million for the 470,810-sq.-ft. Las Olas Centre office towers that were 68% leased. The seller was a Chicago-based affiliate of DWS Group.
SERVICES
- Private equity firm Exuma Capital Partners expanded its Plantation-based property intelligence platform property.com, which matches homeowners and contractors, to cover all of Florida.
REAL ESTATE
- West Palm Beach-based Related Ross plans a mixed-use center in Wellington. The village agreed to sell a site to Related, which plans apartments, a hotel and retail, and ElevateEd, which plans a private school. Palm Beach-based Forman Capital provided $53.69 million in development and construction financing for Coral Gables-based Calta Group’s 251-unit apartment project, Caltopia, in Hollywood.
- Fort Lauderdale-based Stiles and landowner Texas-based Vanderbilt Office Properties want to build a 385-unit apartment project at Vanderbilt’s Plantation Crosswinds office park.
LOGISTICS
- Hollywood-based JBL Asset Management and Avenue Property Group completed the lease-up of their Interstate Commerce Center warehouse in Fort Pierce. Food and beverage distributor Rainforest Distribution took 62,817 square feet and an unidentified tenant took 43,330. Colliers’ executive vice president Michael Falk and associate Corey Walewski represented the landlords. Paulo Rey of Elite International represented Rainforest and Colliers vice chair Jonathan Schuen represented the other tenant.
MEMORIALS
- The Parkland 17 Memorial Foundation selected a design by artist Gordon Huether of Napa, Calif., for a memorial honoring the 17 killed in a 2018 school shooting in Parkland in Broward County. His design has a central fountain and seating area with 17 obelisks, each honoring a victim. The foundation is raising money for the memorial, which will be built on a 150-acre preserve that adjoins Parkland and Coral Springs.