Case Study: How TenantBase Matched NCVA With the Right Broker
TenantBase doesn't just connect tenants with the nearest broker. We match them with a broker who specializes in their exact space. Here's how that got Northern California Volleyball Association (NCVA) a 54,247 SF facility in Oakland.
Most tenant-matching platforms stop at geography and space type. TenantBase goes further, matching tenants with brokers who specialize in their exact use case, even when the right specialist isn't the closest option. Here's how that played out for NCVA, one of Northern California's largest youth sports organizations.
Northern California Volleyball Association needed 25,000 to 100,000 square feet of warehouse space in Oakland to house a nine-court indoor training and tournament facility. TenantBase matched them with Sean Biernacki of Centric Partners, a broker based over an hour away in Orange County, specifically because of his specialization in sporting and family entertainment tenant representation. The result: a 54,247-square-foot industrial space secured, and a five-star review from NCVA's Executive Director.
The Tenant: A Regional Institution Outgrowing Its Space
Founded in 1982, the Northern California Volleyball Association (NCVA) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit and the officially recognized Regional Volleyball Association for all of Northern California, and by its own description, the region's largest youth volleyball league. This isn't a small club outgrowing a rec center. It's a decades-old regional institution with real facility requirements.
NCVA needed 25,000 to 100,000 square feet of warehouse space in Oakland, built out to house a full indoor training and tournament facility, on a lease term of five years or longer for real long-term stability. That's a genuinely specific brief: not just square footage and location, but a use case (indoor courts, tall clearances, layout that supports both training and tournament play) that most general tenant reps don't encounter regularly.
The Match: Specialization Over Proximity
TenantBase doesn't just connect tenants with the nearest available broker. It matches tenants with a broker who specializes in their exact market and space requirement, even when that specialist isn't the closest option on the map.
For NCVA, that broker was Sean Biernacki, a Senior Associate at Centric Partners, a conflict-free, tenant-representation-only firm based in Orange County, more than an hour south of NCVA's target Oakland market. On paper, geography would have pointed elsewhere. In practice, Sean's specialization made the distance irrelevant.
Why Sean was the right specialist, not just an available one:
- Specializes specifically in tenant representation for sporting, recreational, and family entertainment users
- A hotel and property management background that directly informs how he thinks about space layout
- Real experience navigating the zoning and landlord challenges that come with converting a warehouse into a purpose-built athletic facility
The Outcome
Sean secured NCVA a 54,247-square-foot industrial space in Oakland, comfortably within their target range and large enough to house the full nine-court facility and office space they needed.
"Sean was instrumental in helping us find and secure our new 9-court facility and office space. He was incredibly responsive, thorough, and efficient, and always made sure we understood every step of the process. He made a complex move feel seamless, and we appreciate having him as our advocate every step of the way."
Nicole Annaloro, Executive Director, Northern California Volleyball Association
The full deal, at a glance:
The right tenant. The right broker. The right space. That's what specialist matching looks like when it actually works, for a nonprofit with a genuinely specific brief and for a broker whose background made him uniquely equipped to deliver on it.
Find Your Specialist, Not Just Your Nearest Broker
Whether your space requirement is straightforward or genuinely unusual, TenantBase matches you with a broker who actually knows your use case, at no direct cost to your business.
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