Bio

Current Responsibilities

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

Experience

From June 2013 to mid-2018 Mr. Lyons was the senior professional in AY’s Raleigh/Durham Office. He and his team completed over $150M of transactions across all major asset classes during that timeframe.

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.

From 1999 to early 2002, Mr. Lyons served as lead commercial broker for Brassfield Commercial Realty. He was responsible for tenant and landlord representation as well as investment sales in the Raleigh-Durham market with a particular focus on the northern Wake County/Wake Forest market.

Lyons has completed over $325M in transactions during his career on all of the following asset classes: office, medical office, industrial, multi-family, net leased retail and land.

Representative Transactions

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 (Rogers Alley).

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. The aggressive marketing campaign undertaken by Lyons’ firm resulted in multiple competing offers and a closing price that exceeded an earlier unsolicited offer made to the seller by nearly $2.5M.

Lyons represented SVN Equities in the acquisition of the +/- 225,000 sq-ft. Commercial Park West (industrial/flex) portfolio in Durham in December 2006. The assets were acquired for $10.9M which was substantially below their replacement cost.

During the period 2005-2009 Lyons assisted nine different medical groups in the sale (and lease back) of their medical office buildings. Total sales volume for these transactions exceeded $15M. Six of the nine transactions set a market record (price per SF) at the time of sale. Lyons has also represented a number of other medical groups and individual physicians in the identification, and lease negotiations for their medical office space.

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.