Lee & Associates is continuing to expand throughout Florida as the brokerage opens its seventh office in Gainesville after Dan Drotos and his team joined the firm.
Drotos, a Gainesville native and commercial real estate professional of over 15 years, now serves as Lee & Associates' president and managing principal of the North Florida office. Brokers Rory Causseaux and Lauren Vazquez joined him in the move from Colliers.
The new office, located at 104 SW 6th St., will specialize in office, industrial, land and retail advisory and brokerage services, serving institutional, owner-user and private capital clients throughout North Central Florida.
Drotos has worked as a commercial real estate broker in Alachua County since 2010. He told CoStar News in an interview that his team was looking for a more entrepreneurial group for their next chapter.
“We're thrilled about the opportunity with Lee. It's going to align with how we run our business here in Gainesville and across North Florida,” Drotos said.
But the decision to join Lee & Associates wasn’t spur of the moment. Jeff Rinkov, CEO of the brokerage, said he had known Drotos for years through a mutual associate in Lincoln, Nebraska, who at the time had just started with Lee & Associates, he said.
“He introduces Dan and I, and then we engage in about a year-long conversation where Dan educates me about the market and their practice and the ability ... to grow a much larger business here. And then we educate Dan about the elements of our platform. And that's how we built this relationship,” Rinkov said.
Rinkov said that opening the firm’s seventh Florida office is part of a broader effort to expand the brokerage in areas that exhibit “robust” economic activity, growing population and locations that clients are interested in.
The Gainesville market and wider North Central Florida area is growing significantly, driven in part by the region’s education and healthcare sectors, Drotos said. Gainesville is home to the University of Florida and Santa Fe College, alongside three major hospital systems.
“Those are our driving economic forces in the market,” Drotos said.
Clients and brokers across Lee & Associates' ecosystem “can now look at Gainesville as another place where we can confidently share business, we can learn best practices, and it really gives the lift to our entire enterprise,” Rinkov said.
Lee & Associates is hiring for the Gainesville office and Margaret Drotos, the former director of development at the University of Florida, recently joined as chief operating officer.