Bill Reeves, executive vice president of Colliers International, was named 2023’s Dealmaker of the Year by the Tampa Bay Business Journal for his role representing Tampa Electric Company and Peoples Gas in their headquarters relocation to a new building located in Midtown Tampa.
Reeves has had his roots tied to the Brandon area since the 80s.
“My father built one of the first homes in the South Oak subdivision off Bell Shoals Road and I attended Brandon High when it was the only high school between Ybor and Plant City,” recalled Reeves, mentioning that at the time students were on split schedules due to overcrowding.
To pay for college after graduating as an Eagle, Reeves enlisted in the Army, during which he spent time in Panama and Operation Desert Storm. At 29, Bill graduated from the University of Florida, where he earned his undergraduate degree in real estate and finance. Relocating back to SE Hillsborough, Reeves eventually settled down in FishHawk. There he and his ex-wife raised three boys, “all who have graduated Newsome High School and are now off to college, two in Gainesville and another in Boston,” he said.
Now an empty nester, I asked Reeves why he still lives in SE Hillsborough and if he would consider a move closer to his office in Tampa.
“Having the three boys, the extra land, the suburban lifestyle and great schools in the area” made living in FishHawk a great experience, Reeves said, but he agreed that the traffic has made him think about moving. He sits in the same traffic we do and is all aboard light rail service from FishHawk to Tampa, feeling it would be beneficial for the Tampa Bay area and take cars off the roads.
Reeves began his commercial career in 2000, not long before 9/11, and has seen his share of ups and downs over his 20-plus years in the industry. During the 2008 meltdown, “having nothing else to do and wanting to keep his friends and colleges in the industry together,” he helped form the band Southern Train in the late 2000s. They are still together today, although not playing as much as he would like.
The deal recently closed with Tampa Electric Co. and Peoples Gas spanned four years ranking near the top of his long list of accomplishments. Earlier in his career, Reeves worked closely with TECO, finding it land on which to build solar farms, so when it came time for TECO’s headquarters to relocate, TECO already had its man.
Reeves and his team at Colliers orchestrated the purchase of a 290,000-square-foot, 11-story office condominium in Midtown East, which to date represents one of the largest office deals in Tampa Bay history. Bromley Companies and Highwoods Properties jointly own the remainder of the 18-story Midtown East building. TECO and Peoples Gas will move to the tower when it opens in 2025.
Another one of many highlights of Reeves’ commercial real estate career came in the early 2010s when he and his team helped Jeff Vinik, owner of the Tampa Bay Lightning and visionary of the Water Street area, relocate from the Northeast to sunny Florida.
For more information about Reeves or his team at Colliers International, please visit his profile at www.colliers.com/en/experts/bill-reeves or contact him at bill.reeves@colliers.com, 813-221-4344 (office) or 813-787-6090 (mobile).
