Central Florida Advisors, a Grubb & Ellis|Commercial Florida Subsidiary, Increases Portfolio of Tax Advisory Properties by 300 Percent

ORLANDO - Last year, Central Florida Advisors, the tax advisory subsidiary of Grubb & EllisCommercial Florida, represented properties valued at more than $100 million.

This year, Central Florida Advisors represents properties valued at more than $460 million in Florida, reports Jeff Sweeney, president and managing principal at Grubb & EllisCommercial Florida.

Central Florida Advisors specializes in helping commercial property owners reevaluate their property tax assessments, Sweeney explained.

Central Florida Advisors helped the owners of one suburban-area mixed use property cut their property taxes by nearly 50 percent, Sweeney said.

“That resulted in over $200,000 of tax savings for their bottom line,” he added.

The deadline for appealing property tax assessments in Orange County is Sept. 10.
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About Grubb & EllisCommercial Florida: Grubb & EllisCommercial Florida is an affiliated commercial real estate services firm specializing in the leasing and sale of office, industrial, retail, land and investment properties. Currently Grubb & EllisCommercial Florida has 45 brokers divided among its Orlando, Melbourne and Tampa offices to serve the entire mid-Florida marketplace.

CONTACTS: Brett Felberg, 407-481-5390; Jeff Sweeney SIOR President 407-481-5387; Larry Vershel Communications 407-644-4142

Data Transfer Solutions Secures Several Wildfire Risk Assessment Contracts

ORLANDO - Data Transfer Solutions, LLC, the Avalon Park-based firm that provides asset management, geographic information systems (GIS) services, transportation planning, web design, database applications and multimedia production services to local government and regional and state agencies throughout the U.S., was awarded additional contracts with the State of Texas and the Florida Division of Forestry to increase access to wildfire risk assessment data.

The expertise of DTS’ Vice President of GIS Solutions, David Buckley played a critical role in earning the recent contracts, said A. M. “Trey” Fragala III, AICP, PMP, chief operating officer at Data Transfer Solutions. Mr. Buckley has extensive experience in the design and development of custom GIS applications to address specific domain requirements, such as wildfire management, forest land management, hazard mitigation planning, and advanced landscape analysis and modeling, Fragala went on say.

Specifically, DTS will be developing a wildfire risk assessment web portal for the State of Texas, which will facilitate access to risk information and analysis tools for planners and the public. In addition, Mr. Buckley is working closely with the Florida Division of Forestry to support the integration of wildfire risk information with the State’s Hazard Mitigation Plan update. The State plan will help county planners throughout Florida assess mitigation priorities and local disaster response needs as part of Florida’s DMA 2000 requirements.

Buckley’s recent DTS projects focus on applying GIS analysis and modeling techniques to better utilize risk assessment information with local and state planning efforts. Working with DTS partners, Mr. Buckley is also the technical lead for the West Wide Wildfire Risk Assessment project, a 17 state initiative to analyze wildfire risk across the west (www.westwideriskassessment.com).

For more information contact: A.M. “Trey” Fragala, III, AICP, PMP, Chief Operating Officer, Data Transfer Solutions, 3680 Avalon Park East Blvd., Suite 200, Orlando, 32828; 407-382-5222; tfragala@edats.com