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.

The group of brokers and property managers who once worked at Codina Realty Services is pretty much the same group which operates out of Flagler Real Estate Services today, says Rowley, but he wants to do more than just re-assemble former Codina people. Rather, he wants to recreate the dominant position of Codina Realty Services, which, he says, was number one in brokerage and property management for office and industrial real estate. The entity had the largest dollar volume of transactions, on the brokerage side, for all three South Florida counties for several years in the late 1990s and early 2000s, says Rowley. "We've already regained the number one status in property management, in terms of the square footage that the company manages," he says.