Douglas Elliman opens new South-of-Fifth office in Miami Beach

Call it an old-fashioned turf war or a measured expansion, but Douglas Elliman has officially re-opened and expanded its offices in Miami Beach’s South of Fifth neighborhood in a bid to grow its market share in the hot area.

The roughly 1,000-square-foot office, which opened its doors in the Murano at Portofino condo tower July 1, is being headed by industry veteran Tom Bryan, whose real estate career stretches back 28 years including stints in highly competitive markets like New York City and Washington, D.C.

He’s currently acting as Douglas Elliman’s regional managing broker who helps run four of the firm’s Miami offices.

The new South Beach office brings Douglas Elliman’s number of offices in South Florida to 17. Recent years have seen the brokerage rapidly expand its presence in the region, now boasting about 700 agents.

With the move, Douglas Elliman is closing down its much smaller office at 135 South Ocean, which held about 12 agents in 400 square feet. The new digs will have 25 agents including noteworthy names like Sonia Toth, Keith Marks, Joyce Garrett, Adriana Pinto Torres and others.

“We’re concentrating our recruiting on the top 10 percent of the market and working with those agents to take their business to the next level,” Bryan told The Real Deal.

Douglas Elliman’s expansion brings it within striking distance of another brokerage aggressively growing its South Florida footprint, Brown Harris Stevens. Just last year, the company’s Miami Beach division headed by Mark Zilbert opened its second office at the nearby Continuum South Beach condo complex.

“As Miami Beach continues to evolve, the South of Fifth neighborhood remains the resilient catalyst where it all began,” Bryan said in a statement. “The agents in our existing Miami Beach offices are facilitating transactions in the South of Fifth neighborhood on a daily basis. Opening an office in the infamous neighborhood was a natural fit for our company’s further growth.”