Velocity Retail Group’s Gast team has been busy carving up the Phoenix retail map, closing more than 1.1 million square feet of transactions across the metro in 2025. The flurry of deals included buying a former big-box gym, selling multiple acres of land in Mesa and structuring a 1031 exchange that rolled roughly $15 million into off-market retail centers. Activity stretched from Chandler to Mesa and other Valley corridors, blending leasing, investment sales and land deals into one very crowded calendar.
According to Connect CRE, the Gast team tallied 1,119,812 square feet of leasing and investment activity and landed a spot among Connect CRE’s Phoenix & Southwest Top Broker Award winners for 2026. The outlet highlighted transactions that paired investment sales with lease negotiations, crediting that mix-and-match approach as a key reason for the team’s recognition.
The Team Behind The Numbers
Velocity Retail Group lists Brian Gast as Executive Vice President and Principal, leading the Gast team from the firm’s Phoenix office. The company describes the group as focused on tenant representation, landlord assignments and integrated leasing-and-investment work throughout the Valley.
Key Transactions That Added Up
The Connect CRE profile notes that the Gast team represented Iron Courts in a $7.5 million purchase of a 45,050-square-foot former LA Fitness in Chandler. The team also sold 12.02 acres on Power Road in Mesa to a developer planning an Aldi, an EōS Fitness and several quick-service restaurant pads. The same write-up reports that the group structured a roughly $15 million 1031 exchange that financed the acquisition of three off-market retail centers in the Phoenix area.
How This Fits The Phoenix Market
Phoenix has been one of the country’s busiest retail metros, and the Gast team’s deals are riding that wave. Marcus & Millichap reported that the metro led the United States in net absorption during the first half of 2025, with more than 1.4 million square feet taken down. Local trackers show vacancy hovering near historic lows while asking rents climb, a combination that helps fuel investor interest in grocery, fitness and quick-service concepts, according to market data from Cushman & Wakefield.
Why Grocers, Gyms And QSRs Matter
Landlords across the Valley are carving up older big-box footprints into smaller pads and grocery or fitness anchors, betting on tenants that can deliver steady foot traffic and more predictable cash flow. A company post on LinkedIn from Velocity Retail Group put it bluntly: “retail fundamentals are strong,” using that line to explain why service-oriented tenants are showing up more often as key occupiers in the region…