Business-friendly policies in Hollywood convinced this airline to move to the city
Silver Airways will say goodbye to Fort Lauderdale in 2020. Smitten with Hollywood’s business-friendly policies, the airline will soon relocate its headquarters to the neighborhood.
The airline, founded in 2010 in Fort Lauderdale, has nonstop flights out of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport across the state, Northeast, Southeast and Caribbean. Last week, the company signed a lease for a consolidated 29,438-square-foot space at 2850 Greene St.; it plans to move there in the first quarter of 2020.
Silver Airways will vacate its Fort Lauderdale headquarters of about 17,000 square feet at 1100 Lee Wagener Blvd. by June 2020.
Larry W. Genet and Tom O’Loughlin, CBRE senior vice presidents and brokers for the Fort Lauderdale office, negotiated the lease on behalf of the landlord and owner New York developer Steven Samuels. Binswanger-Gateway Principal Pedro J. Garcia and his associate director, Rudford Hamon, represented Silver Airways. The lease bumped the occupancy rate of the 59,818-square-foot building to about 50%, said Genet.
“Hollywood is doing things to entice businesses to come to Hollywood,” said Silver Airways CEO Steve Rossum.
The airline continues to add routes — it introduced its most recent nonstop flight to Pensacola in February — and wants to expand to meet demand. Hollywood will pay the company to do so.
“Through training and job creation credits, we get cash incentives to grow our number of employees,” said Rossum.
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Genet said Hollywood’s Mayor Josh Levy, Director of Public Affairs Raelin Storey and Chief Development Officer Shiv Newaldass are nurturing a business-friendly environment. The city is renovating city-owned property and investing in infrastructure updates to prevent flooding.
“It’s little things like that that have a huge impact on real estate,” said Genet. “Companies need to know that they can get in and out with ease.”
The lease terms were not disclosed, but the direct asking rate for a Class A space in the Fort Lauderdale area averages $32.72 per square foot, according to the 2019 Colliers third-quarter market report. Class B office space is leasing for an average $26.69 per square foot.
The direct asking rate for a Class A space in Hollywood averages $31.26 per square foot, according to the 2019 Colliers third quarter market report. Class B averages $28.53 per square foot.
This story was originally published November 20, 2019 at 4:30 AM.
