Current Responsibilities

As a Principal in the Capital Markets' Group for Avison Young, Lyons is responsible for expanding the investment sales across the Carolinas' region with a focus on the Upstate of South Carolina (Greenville/Spartanburg) and Charleston.

Experience

From 2018 to early 2023, Mr. Lyons has completed over $100M in industrial, office and land transactions across the Carolinas' region and Virginia.

From June 2013 to mid-2018 Mr. Lyons was the senior professional in Avison Young's Raleigh/Durham Office. He and his team completed over $150M in transactions across all major asset classes.

From May 2011 to June 2013, Mr. Lyons was Vice President-Investment Sales for Lincoln Harris, LLC (Raleigh, NC) where he facilitated the sale of a number of REO and investment properties.

From 2002 to April 2011, Mr. Lyons was the Managing Director/Senior Advisor at Sperry Van Ness (SVN) for the Raleigh-Durham market. At SVN, Mr. Lyons focused on directing a team of brokers who specialized in investment sales transactions, including office, industrial, multi-family and retail assets. Lyons spent a large percentage of his personal brokerage time on the medical office sector and (commercial) land transactions.

In 1999, Lyons launched his real estate brokerage career as lead commercial broker for Brassfield Commercial Realty (Wake Forest, NC).

Lyons has completed over $400M in transactions during his career on all of the following asset classes: office, medical office, industrial, multi-family, net leased retail and land.

Prior to venturing into real estate, Lyons served in multiple engineering, technical marketing, product management and sales' positions with several global telecom equipment manufacturers from 1984-1998.

Representative Transactions:

In 2019, Lyons' assisted a NYC based private equity firm in the acquisition of a 4-property, 470,000 sf portfolio of industrial assets for $17.7M.

Between 2015 - 2018, Lyons and partners have closed nearly $100M in commercial properties including the 189,000 sf Class A office building at 535 Connecticut Avenue (Norwalk, CT); the 220-unit Signature Place Apartments (Greenville, NC) and the 210,000 sf Centennial Corporate Office Park in Aiken, SC.

In 2014, Lyons was responsible for approximately $27M worth of transactions including the sale of two, significant medical properties in west Raleigh (NC) as well as a 30K sf mixed use, redevelopment project in downtown Durham (NC).

Mr. Lyons was the lead advisor on the Advocare (long-term care) portfolio sale that included three South Carolina properties totaling 106,000 sq-ft (306 beds). The portfolio was sold to a Chicago based private REIT for $17.2M.

During the period 2005-2009 Lyons assisted nine different medical groups in the sale (and lease back) of their medical office buildings. Lyons represented a California based private equity firm in the acquisition of the +/- 225,000 sq-ft. Commercial Park West (industrial/flex) portfolio in Durham in December 2006.

Education and Affiliations

Mr. Lyons holds a Master’s in Business Administration from Georgia State University and a Bachelor’s of Science Degree from Duke University. He holds real estate licenses in North & South Carolina. He is a member of the CCIM Institute and an active member of the North Carolina CCIM Chapter for which he served as their 2009 President. He also holds the coveted SIOR designation as an Office Specialist. Lyons is a past Chairman of the Board of Governors for the North Carolina Realtors Commercial Alliance (RCA). He served on the North State Bank Advisory Board (Wake Forest, NC) for ten years and has held multiple board positions with various civic organizations. He remains active in Rotary (downtown Greenville Club) and serves on the Veteran's Mentoring program committee.