Matthew Whitman Lazenby, President and Chief Executive Officer of Whitman Family Development, LLC, is the fourth-generation leader of the family owned business that began developing commercial real estate in Miami in the early twentieth century.
Lazenby represents his company in development, leasing, operational and asset- management issues for the international, luxury shopping destination Bal Harbour Shops, and for the 500,000 square feet of retail space at Brickell City Centre. The $1.05 billion, mixed-use development opened in downtown Miami’s Brickell area in 2016.
He describes the foundation on which his company has thrived as an unrelenting focus on the distant future. Luxury demands a long-term view, he said. It should evolve over time.
Before joining his uncle, Randall Whitman, and grandfather, Stanley Whitman, as a leasing agent at Bal Harbour Shops in 2003, Lazenby had been employed by Robert K. Futterman & Associates, where he was immersed in New York City’s retail industry and came to appreciate the tenants perspective in selecting sites and negotiating with landlords. Lazenby had also been a leasing agent for The Taubman Company, a publicly traded Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), headquartered in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
At Bal Harbour Shops, Lazenby soon rose to director of leasing/general partner and then to operating partner. Meanwhile, the International Council of Shopping Centers in 2012 named Bal Harbour Shops the world’s #1 top-performing shopping center. In 2013, Lazenby was named President and CEO of Whitman Family Development. Lazenby holds a master’s degree in real estate development and urbanism from the University of Miami and an undergraduate degree in English literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He previously taught English at his alma mater, St. Thomas Episcopal School in Miami.
He is a member of numerous trade groups and is active in community organizations, including the Urban Land Institute and its Commercial and Retail Development Council, the International Council of Shopping Centers, Mount Sinai Hospital’s Advisory Board, The Buoniconti Fund to Cure Paralysis’s Board of Directors, and Miami Country Day School’s Board of Trustees. He is also on the Advisory Board of the University of Miami’s Master of Real Estate Development + Urbanism program.