MIAMI-The president of Flagler Real Estate Services, a division of Coral Gables-based Flagler, a private REIT, is bullish on the South Florida real estate economy. “I see signs of buyers beginning to come out and money loosening up,” says Pike Rowley, who joined the company last November, after four years heading up his own firm, The Rowley Group in Broward County.

Rowley cites the recent sale, by IDI, of four out of the six buildings at the 1.1-million-square-foot Weston Business Center in Weston, Florida for $65 million, or $96 per square foot, a few weeks ago, as a reason to be optimistic about the industrial real estate market today. “I’ve heard that when the property was put up for sale, 25 buyers showed up,” he says. “This is the first transaction that says ‘we’re back,’” says Rowley, referring to what he sees as a reinvigorated industrial market.

Rowley’s goal for his own company is to, in essence, reconstitute Codina Realty Services, the brokerage and property management arm of the Coral Gables-based Codina Group, before Codina merged with Flagler in 2006.