Darcie Lunsford

Welcome to 2016. It should feel a lot like 2015. This year is forecast to deliver another solid performance for the commercial real estate sector.  According to the Urban Land Institute Real Estate Consensus Forecast, a semiannual report that surveys 48 of the nation’s leading real estate economists and analysts, a majority of real estate

Think of it as the pseudoscience of a real estate recovery. The better things are, the better they get… for now.  Across the region, office, industrial and retail vacancy rates fell in the third quarter compared to the same quarter in the previous year, according to third-quarter CBRE market data. Rents also rose in every

Do you remember 2005?  Those were the boom days of commercial real estate, when trophy office towers, shopping centers and big-box distribution facilities were selling faster than the Momma’s Pancake Breakfast special at Cracker Barrel on Sunday.   Well, investors are once again gorging in South Florida. West Palm Beach’s Phillips Point and Brickell Avenue’s

Nothing sizzles in South Florida like retail – and nothing is sexier these days than the rise of the “mega-project.” A billion-dollar project here, a $2 billion development there and another $800 million down the street. It’s been steady parade of retail-anchored, condo-inspired, mixed-use developments with splashes of luxury office spaces and a hotel tower

After an extended and sluggish comeback, South Florida’s commercial real estate rebound appears to be accelerating, according to the latest midyear market data from CBRE.  Vacancy rates tumbled year-over-year across the region for both office and industrial space as companies continued to lease more space than they vacated, commonly referred to as positive absorption.  

Staples” $6.3 billion merger with Office Depot is still stuck at the gate amid media accounts about whether regulators would give approval. If the deal is consummated, it could mean that Office Depot will take flight from its 625,000-square-foot headquarters in Boca Raton, leaving another empty office campus in its wake.  The retailer still has

A flurry of M&A action is reshaping South Florida’s commercial real estate brokerage and third-party services landscape. The Colliers International brand has shrunk; the Avison Young name has risen rapidly; Texas tenant representation powerhouse Mohr Partners has opened its first office; and London-based Savills got a nice chunk of South Florida’s corporate tenant advisory market

Remember all those customer service operation and call centers that were sent packing in the 1990s to faraway lands like India and the Philippines in search of cheaper rent and English-speaking labor? They are now making a comeback in South Florida.   And while there appears to be no shortage of willing workers in population-dense

Fort Lauderdale’s Cypress Creek Road area might easily be described as a river of sprawl, in a canyon of mid-rise office complexes.  Most people would probably drive right through it without having a second thought or turning a descriptive phrase.   Despite its nondescript, eight-lane, tree-sparse urban-scape, accented by a cacophony of asphalt, the Cypress

It is not your imagination. New apartment projects are popping up like sawgrass across the South Florida landscape. In fact, nearly 8,100 new rental units were delivered region-wide last year alone, topping off a three-year construction surge.  Bolstered by a torrent of capital, available financing, low vacancy rates and an ever-rising floor for what people

Miami Beach’s Lincoln Road shopping district isn’t an epicenter of luxury retailers like Chanel, Cartier or Louis Vuitton. It’s not an easy in-and-out shopping venue for grabbing a last minute gift or party dress. It’s not logistically attractive for buying a large piece of art or bulky household item that would need to be hauled

The sheer mass of all the big box industrial buildings that have raced out of the ground in the last two years in South Florida could hold the entire populous of South Florida. True, it might be standing room only, and a bit of a squeeze akin to that old TV ad that crams all