JLL has recruited three experienced brokers from Avison Young to strengthen its office-leasing business in Palm Beach and Broward counties, adding executives with backgrounds in advising landlords and tenants. Greg Martin and Justin Cope have joined as senior managing directors, while Lisa Blumer has become a senior vice president, according to a company release. Their appointments put the two counties at the centre of the group’s South Florida remit.

Martin brings 30 years in commercial real estate, while Cope has spent the past 20 years in the industry. Alongside Blumer’s office-leasing and landlord-advisory background, the team’s experience spans work for property owners and occupiers, as well as building sales. JLL’s additions come alongside staffing moves at Blanca Commercial Real Estate and Lantern Real Estate Advisors + Partners, both of which are expanding leasing operations in parts of the same South Florida market.

Martin’s career includes helping establish Avison Young’s Florida business as a founding partner, according to JLL’s release. Office leasing has been his speciality within commercial real estate. His earlier positions included senior director at Cushman & Wakefield and vice president at CBRE. He also previously led the South Florida chapter of Florida NAIOP, now CREDA, as president and received the association’s Broker of the Year award. That record brings both brokerage and industry-association experience to his new role.

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Cope was a principal at Avison Young before moving to JLL. His career has centred on representing landlords and leasing office space, with earlier work at Duke Realty Corporation, Cushman & Wakefield and Marcus & Millichap. Those roles form the background to his appointment as a senior managing director. Although he and Martin will hold the same title, the release describes their geographic focus collectively: JLL’s operations in Broward and Palm Beach counties.

Blumer joins with a background in office leasing and advising landlords on strategy, according to the release. At Avison Young, her positions included senior associate, senior vice president and principal. She holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Florida State University. Her move gives JLL another executive with experience serving property owners, complementing the landlord-representation work in Cope’s career and Martin’s long-standing office-leasing specialisation. All three arrive from the same brokerage, bringing that shared professional background to their new employer.

JLL is not the only firm adding experienced leasing personnel in the two counties. Mike Nathanson has returned to Blanca Commercial Real Estate as senior vice president, a position he previously held from 2016 to 2020. Between those periods at Blanca, he spent six years as director of leasing at Workspace Property Trust. His assignment is to help grow Blanca’s office-leasing advisory business across Palm Beach and Broward counties, with particular attention to Fort Lauderdale, where he will be based, according to a company release.

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Nathanson’s background includes more than 20 years in South Florida commercial real estate, with an emphasis on landlord agency work and tenant representation. He has also worked at Terranova Corporation and Panther Capital Realty, LLC. Blanca’s release credits him with transactions covering more than 3 million square feet over his career. That figure describes his cumulative transaction experience, rather than a new leasing commitment, and provides a measure of the professional track record accompanying Blanca’s expansion in the same counties targeted by JLL.

Lantern Real Estate Advisors + Partners is taking a different staffing route, relocating leasing-team vice president Jessica Adler from New York City to Palm Beach as it expands its South Florida practice. Adler has represented both tenants and landlords. Her recent work includes leasing at The Nora District, a $1 billion mixed-use development in West Palm Beach, according to a company release. That work gives her local leasing experience, although the project’s stated value is not a measure of her transaction volume.

Adler began working at Lantern in 2021 and has been a vice president for nearly two years. She graduated from Syracuse University with a real estate degree and previously held internships at NIA National Realty and Acuity Partners. Her relocation contrasts with the external recruitment at JLL and Nathanson’s return to Blanca: the firms are reinforcing their South Florida leasing practices through different personnel moves, rather than following a single approach to building their teams in the area.

The announcements establish the firms’ staffing priorities but do not provide office vacancy rates, rental trends or new leasing volumes with which to assess market demand. The announced assignments are operational: JLL’s trio will concentrate on Broward and Palm Beach, Nathanson will support Blanca’s advisory expansion from Fort Lauderdale, and Adler is relocating to Palm Beach. Those overlapping geographic assignments place experienced leasing professionals in the same regional markets, without yet establishing what business the appointments will generate.