fbpx

Industry remains a substantial driver

All eyes remain on South Florida’s industrial sector as the dazzling belle of commercial real estate’s bull-market ball.

Miami-Dade County’s fourth-quarter industrial rents hit an all-time high, ending the year at $9 per square foot, gross, despite 4 million square feet of new construction completions in 2017, according to the latest CBRE market data.

More is on the way this year.

The Miami-Dade industrial market, by far is the largest in the state at 214.5 million square feet of inventory, had 24 projects totaling 4.9 million square feet under construction in the fourth quarter, data showed.

Inventory absorption topped 2.8 million for 2016, which was consistent with 2016 levels, data shows.

“Our activity is good,” says Michael Silver, first vice president of CBRE. “Miami is humming along.”

Trade, logistics, population growth and Miami International Airport’s recent designation from the International Aviation Transport Association as the world’s second “pharma hub”—with specialized facilities to handle the shipping of pharmaceuticals—remain key drivers, he says. (The other hub is Brussels Airport in Belgium.)

Fourth-quarter vacancy did tick up slightly to 3.5 percent, compared to a year before, because of new construction.

Palm Beach County ended the year with the lowest vacancy in the region at 3.2 percent, data shows. The county, which had nearly a half-million square feet of new industrial buildings open in the fourth quarter, also has the highest rents in the region at $9.25 per square foot on a net basis. That’s up 3 percent compared to the last quarter of 2016.

Broward County, which had a million square feet of new industrial inventory last year, had its fourth-quarter rents dip 4 percent to $8.46 on a net basis, compared to the previous year.

E-commerce—expected to be further buoyed by the federal $1.5 trillion tax-cutting package as many consumers see their take-home wages increase—continues to be an emerging driver of South Florida’s industrial market, Silver says.

According to CBRE, for each $1 billion of increased e-commerce sales, an additional 1.25 million square feet of brick-and-mortar warehouse and distribution centers will be needed to house and process the products. E-commerce sales—$462 billion in 2017—are projected to balloon to $789 billion by 2021, according to eMarketer data.

Propped up by employment growth and restrained construction, the region’s office market continued its slow upward glide in the fourth quarter.

Miami-Dade County has had the most post-recession office construction, delivering 129,676 square feet of new offices in last quarter of the year, most of that in downtown Miami. Vacancy fell to end the fourth quarter at 10.9 percent, compared to 11.6 percent a year earlier, data shows. Rents also increased a modest 3 percent.

Broward County had delivery of the 88,000-square foot Hillsboro Technology Center at Interstate 95 and Hillsboro Boulevard in Deerfield Beach in the fourth quarter. It is already 94 percent leased.

The county’s fourth-quarter vacancy rate tumbled 130 basis points to 11.8 percent with rent growth of 4 percent year-over-year, data shows.

Similarly, Palm Beach County had a continued burn-off of its office supply as a near-decade-long dearth of construction and rising corporate demand has filled up existing buildings. The county’s vacancy dipped 70 basis points to 16 percent in the fourth quarter and rents jumped 7 percent, year-over-year.

But uncertainty about the nation’s trade policy and a recent spate of tariffs coming out of the Trump administration does concern Coral Gables-based economist Tony Villamil of the Washington Economics Group.

Florida’s economy is heavily reliant on global trade and international business. One in four jobs statewide are linked to international trade. China was the state’s second largest trade partner in 2016, according to Enterprise Florida. Mexico and Canada are top markets for Florida’s manufacturing exports, including aviation parts and engines, computer components and telecommunications equipment.

“The economy is doing great, and all that helps real estate,” says Villamil, former undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs under President George H.W. Bush and part of the policy team that worked on the North American Free Trade Agreement. “But there are storm clouds on the horizon, coming all the way down from Washington, D.C., that we need to monitor.”

Freelance writer Darcie Lunsford is a former real estate editor of the South Florida Business Journal. She is the senior VP for leasing at Butters Group and is avoiding a conflict of interest in her column by not covering her own deals.

You May Also Like
State Legislature Drops the Job Growth Ball

By Gary Press   With Florida facing historically high unemployment because of the COVID-19 pandemic, one would think our state government would be pulling out all of the stops to

Read More
Rethinking Sales Today

Today, more organizations increasingly are facing more competition, rapidly changing technology, slower market growth and less product differentiation. This trend requires business development professionals to manage more accounts, build stronger

Read More
The Future of the Office

[vc_row css_animation=”” row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern”][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text] As I talked to my many office tenants in the first few weeks of the national shutdown, they were pleasantly surprised

Read More
Is your sales manager managing time well?

Is your sales manager balancing priorities properly? How do you know? Today a big question faced by most executives is, what is my sales manager doing and what should he

Read More
Other Posts
And Justice For All

By Monica St. Omer   Monica St. Omer has been working with me for eight years. She is my right-hand but so much more. She is a wonderful soul who

Read More
Keeping us connected

As a company that doesn’t directly serve the general public, SBA Communications might be called the quiet giant of the South Florida business scene even thought it’s on the S&P

Read More
Lessons learned

As I write this column, South Florida has yet to enter into a phase one reopening, lagging the rest of the state. I hope readers and their businesses are negotiating

Read More
The Unseen Enemy

[vc_row css_animation=”” row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern”][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text] As I wrote my column in March for the April issue, the COVID-19 virus was just starting to wreak havoc in

Read More

Drew Limsky

Drew Limsky

Editor-in-Chief

BIOGRAPHY

Drew Limsky joined Lifestyle Media Group in August 2020 as Editor-in-Chief of South Florida Business & Wealth. His first issue of SFBW, October 2020, heralded a reimagined structure, with new content categories and a slew of fresh visual themes. “As sort of a cross between Forbes and Robb Report, with a dash of GQ and Vogue,” Limsky says, “SFBW reflects South Florida’s increasingly sophisticated and dynamic business and cultural landscape.”

Limsky, an avid traveler, swimmer and film buff who holds a law degree and Ph.D. from New York University, likes to say, “I’m a doctor, but I can’t operate—except on your brand.” He wrote his dissertation on the nonfiction work of Joan Didion. Prior to that, Limsky received his B.A. in English, summa cum laude, from Emory University and earned his M.A. in literature at American University in connection with a Masters Scholar Award fellowship.

Limsky came to SFBW at the apex of a storied career in journalism and publishing that includes six previous lead editorial roles, including for some of the world’s best-known brands. He served as global editor-in-chief of Lexus magazine, founding editor-in-chief of custom lifestyle magazines for Cadillac and Holland America Line, and was the founding editor-in-chief of Modern Luxury Interiors South Florida. He also was the executive editor for B2B magazines for Acura and Honda Financial Services, and he served as travel editor for Conde Nast. Magazines under Limsky’s editorship have garnered more than 75 industry awards.

He has also written for many of the country’s top newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Boston Globe, USA Today, Worth, Robb Report, Afar, Time Out New York, National Geographic Traveler, Men’s Journal, Ritz-Carlton, Elite Traveler, Florida Design, Metropolis and Architectural Digest Mexico. His other clients have included Four Seasons, Acqualina Resort & Residences, Yahoo!, American Airlines, Wynn, Douglas Elliman and Corcoran. As an adjunct assistant professor, Limsky has taught journalism, film and creative writing at the City University of New York, Pace University, American University and other colleges.