New Heights

It's more than market confidence that led longtime local commercial real estate broker Barry Seidel to invest $1 million into an expansion at his firm, American Property Group of Sarasota.

Another factor: His son Brian Seidel, one of two Seidel boys to work at the firm, is 6-foot-3. And that caused a problem at the company's old office, which was basically a 1,250-square-foot cubicle farm on U.S. 41 in south Sarasota. The elder Seidel witnessed his son crouching all the time at his desk, and that, combined with a prediction on a commercial real estate rebound, drove the expansion. “He looked like a giant in there,” Seidel says.

The expansion began in late 2011, when Barry Seidel bought the former Prudential Palms Real Estate office at 7750 S. Tamiami Trail. Seidel paid $380,000 for the building, which, at 4,800 square feet, was 300% larger than the too-small space it had occupied since 1994. The expansion has since included more than $700,000 for renovations at the building; several new agent hires, including Jim Boyd, a well-known commercial property appraiser; and a heavy investment in technology for marketing.