Ticket-seller buys office building near I-Drive
Selling theme-park tickets has become lucrative enough for one company to move from rented space in an Orlando shopping center to a $6.5 million building it purchased off International Drive.
In an unusual twist for a fastgrowing company, Florida-based Entertainment Benefits Group firm has opted to purchase an office building with 45,000 square feet rather than lease. Starting in November, the company’s call center and most of its technology operations will relocate to offices that are getting a $1 million-plus upgrade.
“We’ve been growing and, over the last four years, we’ve grown so much that it’s been a challenge to lease space,” said Brett Reizen, chief executive officer of the 14-year-old company. “We decided to invest in the Orlando market.”
Of the company’s 350 employees, about 100 work in Central Florida. That work force will grow if it finalizes a merger with a related Boston company in mid-November. The expansion could double the Orlando operations in two years, a spokeswoman said.
Entertainment Benefits Group specializes in selling corporate-benefit perks, consumer tickets to theme parks, and Broadway and Las Vegas entertainment retail sales. Cirque du Soleil has an ownership stake in it and it has financial backing from investment groups including TPG and Schubert.
Several years after discovering the added health benefits of regular exercise and a good diet, Reizen said he has contracted with Spectrum Inc. to design and equip a gymnasium with treadmills, ellipticals, stationary bikes and yoga studio. A nutritionist and personal trainer will also have space there.
The ticket-sales company is also building a gym for its Las Vegas location and it provides healthclub memberships for employees in South Florida and New York.
“We want to share the benefits of eating healthy and let our employees know how much better they can feel,” Reizen said this week.
And while its new Orlando offices allow the group to quickly scale up for new employees and also retain workers with healthrelated perks, the ownership move is an unusual one in the world of commercial real estate. Reizen said the group’s upcoming merger helped justify the purchase of the two-story office building and upgrade from shopping-center space.
Trevor Hall, a director at Colliers International in Orlando, said an ownership strategy can help companies cap occupancy costs and it tends to work for companies that are confident about their growth plans.
“There are still some good Band C-level properties that could be repurposed,” he said. “But the clearance sale is over and you have to pay fair market value, so the incentive isn’t as great as it was during the depths of the recession.”