Stream Realty Adds CBRE’s Shay Pope to South Florida Team

“I knew I needed other co-leaders,” Katz said. “Shay was in my sights from before … he probably even knew about it.”

Pope, who is based in Miami, ​​will bulk up Stream’s occupier team, working alongside Katz to advise office tenants on relocations and workplace strategy. It is the area he has focused on for the bulk of his career, of which he spent the last decade at CBRE, and eight years before that at Newmark. 

Within the occupier business, Stream is focusing on tenants in the big-ticket industries such as the legal, financial services, health and tech sectors, as well as specializing in headquarters leases and new-to-market relocations, said Katz. 

“There’s a focus on occupier services in the immediate term,” Katz said, but the office intends to keep growing and eventually add other service lines such as investment sales, development and tenant representation. 

While the office market has its challenges, Stream has been busy since opening in January, as it works with clients to navigate the latest trends, including the flight to quality, rightsizing, investing capital to upgrade offices, and in general finding ways to attract employees back to the office.

Another factor helping reshape the South Florida office market is the Brightline rail service, which now connects Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. “Brightline has definitely enabled recruiting from all three counties,” said Pope, thus making downtown cores even more attractive. 

Miami seems the biggest winner of that connectivity. Stream is following the trend of many of its clients by moving its office to Miami, which is where the talent is concentrated and where the newcomers tend to congregate. “Citadel picked Miami because that’s where the young people want to be,” Katz said of the investment giant. “We’re moving to Miami because most of our people are there.” 

Chava Gourarie can be reached at cgourarie@commercialobserver.com.