Developer Rockefeller Group To Close Miami Office

The Rockefeller Group Development Corp. plans to move its Southeast regional office out of Miami to focus on growing its business throughout the region.
The move is expected to be a phased process that could take up to two years, starting in January with the closing of the development firm’s Miami office on Brickell Avenue. A new Southeast regional office is expected to open outside of Florida, most likely in the Atlanta area.
“We see opportunities going forward in the broader region that will be best served by having a more central location in the Southeast, as opposed to one specific state,” said Dwayne Doherty, a spokesman for The Rockefeller Group, the New York-based parent company.
As part of the move, some of the company’s existing six employees in Miami will be relocating. That will not include Edgar Jones, who has run the Miami office for Rockefeller since 2001 as vice president and regional development officer of Southern operations. Jones, who has been active in local real estate for more than 35 years, will become a consultant for Rockefeller effective early next year.
Rockefeller executives say the company remains committed to finishing its projects in South Florida and continuing to look for other opportunities in the area.
“This is not a statement about the way the company views the Florida market,” Doherty said. “This will not reduce the number of people focused on our Florida projects in any way. We remain absolutely committed to our existing Florida projects and sourcing new opportunities.”
The company’s largest project in the area remains the completion of the Miramar Town Center, a joint venture with Kimco Developers that broke ground in April 2006.  While some of the center’s retail and offices have opened, part of the site remains undeveloped.
Rockefeller also owns the prime piece of property just one block north of Las Olas Boulevard that once housed the French Quarter restaurant and has now been cleared for a potential future project that could include up to 250,000 square-feet of residential, office or hotel and retail development.The company also has an office project in the Orlando area and an industrial park in Lakeland.