Mandich family launches industrial brokerage in booming market

The sons of the late Miami Dolphins player and color commentator Jim “The Mad Dog” Mandich launched a brokerage focusing on South Florida’s booming industrial market.

Michael Mandich and his two brothers Nick and Mark have teamed up with a former broker at Cornerstone International Realty, George Smith, to start Mandich Real Estate Advisors in Miami. The new team will complement Mandich’s real estate investment group and will focus on a growing segment of the industrial market — cold storage.

“It’s hot, no pun intended,” said Michael Mandich, managing partner.

With its heavy presence in agricultural products and proximity to major ports and airports as well as Latin America, Florida has become a popular destination for cold storage. According to CBRE, Florida had the third most food-grade industrial cold storage space at 271 million cubic feet in 2017.

South Florida’s industrial space overall is also heating up with low vacancy rates and heavy demand.

Last year, almost 5.3 million square feet of industrial warehouse space changed hands in South Florida, totaling $418.7 million, according to the Commercial Industrial Association of South Florida. That was a 21 percent increase from 2016, even though fewer buildings sold.

Mandich decided to launch the firm after closing on a 133,000-square-foot cold storage facility in northern Miami-Dade County last year. Smith, then at Cornerstone, helped broker the deal.

The Mandich real estate investment group has focused on acquiring industrial cold storage assets and has picked up more than 160,000 square feet of space in the last year. It also served as equity partners in several multifamily, student housing and hard money lending opportunities, according to its website.