Staffing company signs big lease at former Laser Spine HQ in Westshore
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Feb 24, 2022

A Maryland-based health care staffing firm plans to expand its Tampa presence and move to a larger office space in Westshore.

Maxim Healthcare Services Inc., which currently leases around 20,000 square feet in LakePointe One, has signed a lease for 71,000 square feet at 5332 Avion Park Drive, according to real estate sources who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the deal.

An expansion of that magnitude signals the company is likely planning to ramp up hiring. A Maxim representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

At 71,000 square feet, the deal is considered very large by Tampa Bay standards. The average office lease in this market is between 10,000 and 20,000 square feet.

The Avion Park building was built as the 176,000-square-foot headquarters of Laser Spine Institute. LSI committed to the space in 2014, moved in in 2016 and closed its doors suddenly in 2019, leaving employees and patients in a lurch.

Both the Avion Park building and LakePointe One are owned by Raleigh, North Carolina-based Highwoods Properties Inc., one of Tampa Bay's largest office landlords. A Highwoods spokesman declined comment Thursday.

A spokeswoman for CBRE Group Inc. confirmed that senior vice president Jimmy Garvey and Brian Breeding, a health care real estate specialist at Cushman & Wakefield Inc., represented Maxim in the lease transaction. Garvey recently moved to CBRE from Cushman.

Because the Avion Park property was built specifically for LSI — the first three floors were clinical space — Highwoods invested in a significant renovation to transform the building from a medical campus to a multitenant office building.

In early 2020, the building landed a 92,000-square-foot lease with Jacksonville-based e-commerce company Fanatics Inc.