Tampa broker launches website to bring commercial real estate out of 'the Stone Ages'
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Sep 24, 2014

A Tampa Bay industrial real estate broker has created an online marketing platform for commercial properties that he says will bring his industry out of the "Stone Ages” of technology.

"It's a well-known fact that our industry is in the Stone Ages when it comes to marketing,” said Rick Narkiewicz, first vice president with CBRE Group Inc. in Tampa. "Everybody acknowledges it. The residential sector seems to have done it well. Commercial real estate is 15 years behind the times when it comes to marketing, and we have solved that problem.”

Narkiewicz is the founder of Space Shifter ( www.space-shifter.com), a website with a database of commercial properties. The idea came to him two years ago when the two big names in commercial real estate data became one entity, when CoStar bought LoopNet for close to $900 million in 2012, and fees for using those services increased.

CoStar is a subscription database for commercial properties; LoopNet is an online marketing platform.

"That was the inflection point,” Narkiewicz said. "I said, ‘OK, enough.'” Narkiewicz called on his brother-in-law, Joseph Lupo, a tech wiz with several patents to his name. Lupo and his friend, who continue to work for free, built the current website, and Narkiewicz said he's invested about $100,000 in out-of-pocket expenses into Space Shifter. In Tampa Bay, there are 175 registered users and more than 12 million square feet of active industrial listings on the system.

The users range from one-person real estate shops to the big brokerage houses. Jody Johnston, vice president and Tampa city market for Liberty Property Trust, said Space Shifter "seems to have a little buzz in the local market.” He's signed up, using the service as another platform to market Liberty's Tampa properties.

"It's not attempting to be CoStar, per se,” Johnston said. "It's more of a marketing tool for people to use that's visually appealing, to have their listings and put their requirements out there.”

The listings are predominantly industrial properties in Tampa Bay at this point. Narkiewicz said his plan is to expand into industrial properties throughout Florida, and then proceed with other sectors. Right now, the service is free to use, and Narkiewicz said he will eventually charge fees for the service, less than $100 per month. LoopNet offers a small selection of its services for free, and fees start at $69.95 monthly for its "premium listing” services.

"What we're doing is perfecting the industrial platform in our own backyard,” he said. "If you grow too quickly and have a couple stumbles, it can be painful.”

Ashley Gurbal Kritzer is a reporter for the Tampa Bay Business Journal.