Most Florida markets are seeing a robust wave of office construction. “The commercial market has been strong both in Tampa and Orlando, even though the recent residential condo craze has driven up land costs for both office and industrial products,” says Jerry Shaw, senior vice president of Opus South in Tampa, which has two 103,000-sq.-ft. office buildings under construction in Florida, one in Tampa and one in Orlando.
Tere Blanca, senior managing director and south Florida branch manager of Cushman & Wakefield of Florida, expects that south Florida will see “a new supply of office product being delivered next year and that flow will continue through 2011.”
The high costs of land, labor and construction materials indicate that there’s little risk of an immediate oversupply of new office buildings. However, as of midyear, land prices appear to have flattened, and a number of parcels once designated for multifamily residential use are likely to be resold for commercial purposes.
by Lewis M. Goodkin, Floria Trend
