Construction Real Estate & Development Council Meeting

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Jorge Bernal | Gensler
Jorge Bernal is a Client Relationship and Workplace Leader at Gensler Miami. He brings more than 25 years of experience in designing innovative spaces for professional services, tech, creative office, and financial services clients. Jorge is recognized for his ability to create inspired design strategies that are tailored to support each client’s vision and business objectives. His approach provides long-lasting value to his clients including Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits, Kaufman Rossin, Neocis, Telemundo, City National Bank, many Confidential Financial Services clients & Family Offices. Jorge holds a Master’s in Architecture from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.


Eva Garza | Cushman & Wakefield 
Eva Garza is a Senior Managing Director and Total Workplace Lead for the State of Florida where she works in tandem with CW’s brokerage and project management teams heading strategic planning and implementation efforts for CW’s client workspaces and portfolios. Eva’s background in architecture, change management, and economic development, combined with 20+ years of corporate real estate experience, allow her to develop highly effective workplace strategies. She excels at integrating business processes with design principles to create dynamic and engaging workplaces. Throughout her career Eva has successfully led the roll-out of agile work policies, and global standards, achieving optimization as well as enabling clients to ‘future proof’ their workspaces.

Prior to joining C&W, Eva served as the Workplace lead for JLL’s Southeast region and consulting lead for HOK’s Florida practice where she led the development of workplace strategies, change management and portfolio guidelines for Fortune 500 and 100 companies. Eva has delivered across North America, Latin America and EMEA. In her free time, she volunteers for The University of Pennsylvania and the United States Green Building Council.

David Diaz | Solutions Builder
Over the span of his career David has been a part of multiple landmark projects where it be as an onsite Architect, Project Manager, or Owners Representative where he oversaw the construction process of a 56-story residential high rise in downtown Miami, a 14-story office condominium, the build out of over 200 custom designed residential condominium units, the build out of over 100 office/retail spaces. He was also part of the management team responsible for an 85-story mixed-use tower which includes 821 luxury rental apartments, a 208-room hotel, over 100,000 square feet of office space, high-end retail and restaurant space and a 2,000-car parking garage.

This diverse portfolio of projects led to David overseeing the expansion of Cruise Terminal 25 at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. This project was a public/private partnership between Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and Broward County. The project scope included demolition, renovation, and expansion of Cruise Terminals 22/24 and 25 to turn them into one large terminal. The Terminal 25 facility includes a U.S. Customs and Boarder Protection Area, ground transportation layout, baggage collection and processing areas, passenger processing areas for embark and debark and a new passenger boarding bridges.

As a result of his successful oversight of the terminal, David was selected to oversee a public/private partnership, between Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and Miami-Dade County. The project was a 645,000 square foot design-build parking structure to accommodate over 2,000 vehicles.

David’s resume also includes leading JLL’s Florida Market Project & Development Services team and providing design services for Coltrain & Jones and Bermello, Ajamil & Partners, where he was able to strengthen his design skills on projects in many industries, including, educational facilities, mixed-use developments (mid & high rise), recreational facilities, retail, and restaurant.

 

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