Stream Realty Partners, a Dallas-based broker and owner of primarily office properties, has opened up a South Florida office by hiring a team away from Newmark.

Former Newmark Vice Chairman Greg Katz has been hired as executive managing director and partner at Stream Realty to spearhead a new Greater Miami office, the firm announced Tuesday. Katz will manage a four-person team to start, three of whom joined him from Newmark, and look to grow throughout the state.

“We have very aggressive growth plans," Katz told Bisnow in an interview. "We have a three-year plan, a five-year plan. We want to be a prominent name in all the major markets of South Florida."

Katz said after developing a relationship with Stream Realty President Chris Jackson, he found that the firm aligned with what he wants to accomplish after 35 years in commercial real estate: to grow an office with his vision and values.

"I'm at the point in my career, and this is also what really made me excited about the opportunity, where I wanted to put my own fingerprint on the trajectory of the office," he said. "Being a partner, being an owner and in Stream Florida was just the perfect bow that tied it all together and really was almost like a legacy thing in terms of having an ownership stake and feeling a true part of the future leadership of the company."

Joining Katz from Newmark are Senior Vice President Carlyle Coffin,  Head of Strategy and Analytics Jason Warren and Business Operations Manager Teresa Sanzone. Vice President of Acquisitions Mike Lisch joined Stream Realty from digital media firms TIME and Brandcast.

“Miami has been on our radar for years, and this partnership enables us to accelerate our expansion and build-out of service lines throughout Florida,” Jackson said in a statement. “Greg has had tremendous success across Florida and the southeast and is a great leader. His team works well together and respects one another. This is the type of culture we want for Florida and Stream nationwide.”

The team is working out of coworking space in Fort Lauderdale, but Katz said they are searching for a permanent office, which could be in Wynwood, Brickell, Fort Lauderdale or other office hubs.

Nationally, Stream Realty leases and manages nearly 272M SF of office, industrial, retail, healthcare and data center space and handles $5.8B in annual transactions, according to a release. Stream Realty has also acquired and/or developed 47M SF.

South Florida is the 15th new market for the firm. In 2021, it debuted new offices in Phoenix, Nashville and Northern Virginia, and it looks to poach teams from the large, publicly traded brokerage giants like Newmark, CBRE, Cushman & Wakefield and JLL.

Leaders of the publicly traded brokerage houses told investors in earnings calls last fall that they were looking to cut costs — CBRE and JLL both announced layoffs before the end of the year. Those moves have opened the door for smaller firms like Stream Realty to grab market share.

“You notice every company is contracting. They're laying off staff. Stream is aggressively growing," Katz said. "They're opening up other offices and investing in talent and expanding their product lines. I think that's a real advantage when we talk about the recession."