The signer.
Site selection, lease economics, and renewal strategy for businesses on the leasing side of the table.
The owner.
Leasing strategy, tenant targeting, retention programming, and lease audit for owners of the asset.
Where the deal actually gets made.
Most leases are won or lost on three or four clauses that don't look important at signing — operating expense methodology, expansion rights, surrender language, the way TI gets paid out. Five years in, those are the lines that compound.
Robert has spent 25 years negotiating those lines from both sides. He's personally led leasing strategy across more than 750,000 square feet of Class A office and retail — taking institutional portfolios from 85% to 96% occupancy and improving rents by over $20 per square foot.
“A lease is twenty pages of paper that compounds over twenty years. The signing-day economics are rarely the most important number on it.”
That experience informs how he represents each side today. Tenant work is built on understanding what an owner will and won't flex on. Landlord work is built on knowing what a sophisticated tenant will push back against. The discipline is the same. The objective changes.
Five places where representation actually matters.
Modeling lifetime cost — base rent, operating expense escalations, TI amortization, and exit optionality — to surface what a lease will actually cost you over the full term.
Positioning asking rents, structuring concessions with discipline, and projecting NOI trajectory so the deal protects long-term asset value, not just signing-day metrics.
Site selection grounded in current submarket dynamics, competing tenant moves, and what's about to come online — so you sign in the right building at the right moment.
Tenant targeting based on credit, growth trajectory, and fit with the existing stack. We bring in tenants who improve the asset, not just fill space.
Negotiating clauses that matter five years out: assignment, sublet, expansion, contraction, OpEx caps, gross-up methodology. The details that look small at signing.
Structuring lease covenants and credit enhancements that hold up through the cycle. Reviewing exposure on operating cost recovery and indemnification provisions.
Exercising options strategically, leveraging market data to renegotiate, and pursuing blend-and-extend when the leverage exists. Renewals are negotiations, not formalities.
Programming retention before expiration, structuring mutual extensions, and creating renewal economics that work for both sides. Vacancies are expensive — we avoid them.
Auditing pass-through charges against lease language, contesting overruns, and renegotiating escalation methodology when the market has moved against you.
Building OpEx recovery models that fairly allocate, withstand audit, and capture legitimate cost increases without straining the tenant relationship.
750,000+ square feet personally leased. From 85% occupancy to 96%. Rents up $20 per square foot over the term.
Robert Festinger
25 years across institutional commercial leasing — from Class A office acquisitions and re-tenanting to large-portfolio asset management. He's sat on the landlord side and the tenant side, and he knows what each will flex on.
Representation services are provided through We Are Miami LLC.
Robert Festinger is a Florida Licensed Real Estate Sales Associate, affiliated with We Are Miami LLC. All representation agreements and brokerage services are provided exclusively through the affiliated broker.
