Tampa Commercial Real Estate | Florida Commercial Property

For those of you that have not been following the situation, local attorney Steve Burton was added to the Airport Authority’s Board in the last couple of months.  Since then, he has been a tempest in a teapot, challenging status quo and making the establishment more than a little uneasy.  Most of his arrows have been fired either directly or indirectly at Louis Miller, Tampa International Airport’s Executive Director.

In his first meeting, at the protest of Tampa Mayor and TIA Board Member Pam Iorio, he called for a special committee to look at why TIA does not have more international traffic.  More recently, one of Miller’s decisions to raze a building on airport grounds has not only raised eyebrows,  but also raised the ire of Burton and other Board Members.  Apparently, Miller did not disclose to the board that Moffit Cancer Center had offered to lease the building, and it was not an obsolete albatross, as had been portrayed by Miller.  One can only speculate as to why Miller would make such a decision, because he has provided the public with no reasonable response.  But, as an outsider looking in the best possible portrait that can be painted is that the decision was questionable.

There is increasing concern in the area that our government leaders are not doing enough to motivate economic development.  And, now, Miller, the Director of a facility that can have direct consequence to the area’s economic health, is involved in a brouhaha about making a decision concerning one of TIA’s assets that, if the apparent correct decision were made, would provide a fairly meaningful job to the area’s lifeless construction industry, not to mention an additional revenue stream for the Airport.

If our area is going to start seeing the light at the end of a very dark economic tunnel, we must hold our officials’ collective feet to the fire.  Needless to say, if Burton entered his position with an agenda aimed at Miller, he just acquired a little more ammunition.

Here is more about TIA’s office building from the Tampa Bay Business Journal:

Miller didn’t tell the authority at its Jan. 7 meeting that Moffitt’s commercial real estate broker had approached his staff as far back as October about leasing the 40,000-square-foot building at 4101 Jim Walter Blvd., public records show.

Although, we normally reserve this blog for commercial real estate happenings, I believe this information is highly appropriate for our area. There are men and women around the world laying their lives on the line for our safety and respect should be given.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the family and loved ones.

Fallen Hero Escort Route

THURSDAY, February 04, 2010

1400 hrs: Marine Sgt. Daniel M. Angus  arrives at MacDill Air Force Base

1430 hrs. (approximate): Escort departs MacDill AFB

• Escort proceeds North on Bayshore Boulevard to
• East on Platt Street Bridge to
• North on Florida Avenue to
• East on Jackson Street to
• North on Jefferson Street to
• East on Twiggs Street to
• Channelside Drive to
• East on SR 60 to
• South on Kings Avenue to
• West on Lumsden Road to

• South on Providence Road to

• Serenity Meadows Funeral Home

(6919 Providence Road
Riverview, FL 33578-4528)

“We are going to see distress continue to mount this year,” Bach said.

Leasing rates for all sectors, including multifamily, retail, industrial and office, will continue to rise at least through the first six months, he said.

Grubb & Ellis’ Chief economist Robert Bach was in Tampa today to speak with Florida Gulf Coast Association of Realtors (FGCAR) and West Coast CCIM’s to discuss the outlook for commercial real estate.  (Complete story at the Tampa Bay Business  Journal)

The U.S. average apartment vacancy rate was 8 percent and the asking rental rate was $1,026.

Of the other major Florida markets, Miami had the lowest vacancy rate at 5.8 percent as well as the highest asking rental rate at $1,063. Tampa-St. Petersburg had a 10.7 percent vacancy rate and an $827 asking rent and Orlando had a 11.2 percent vacancy rate and an $869 asking rent.

New York-based Reis (Nasdaq: REIS) is a commercial real estate performance information and analysis company.

Copyright 2010 bizjournals.com

Full Article

601 Ashley - Office Space in Downtown Tampa

I just learned that  601 N. Ashley sold last month. Besides the fact that the building is immediately next to our office, I find the sale interesting as I believe it is a microcosm of what is going on in the Tampa market. Novare Development and partners purchased the building in 2005 with the intent  to convert the building to condos.

Well, life happened in the wake of what seemed like a great plan and the market downturn torpedoed any opportunity to break the building down and sell it.  The purchase price in 2005 was $7,000,000 or $114.27/sq ft.  The price on last month’s sale was $4.1 million, or  $67/sq foot, a 41% decrease.   While the Tampa Downtown Sub market hovers around 20% vacancy, it will be interesting to see what the new owners have in store for the property.

“This is a generational opportunity for law firms, for those whose leases are up in the next couple years,” said Jack Lowell of Flagler Real Estate Services. “We’ve been through this a few times before in Miami. These cycles last for two to three years.”

This was a piece from the  Miami Herald today.  It is interesting to  watch the way law firms are handling the current  downturn in the Tampa Bay area.  Some are looking for the 10  year leases  to really capitalize on their positions in the market.  Others are moving in to sub-leases  at 30%  below  market  rents,  with 2  year terms.   Confidence  in the staying power of their firms is a big factor  in which way they decide to go.

Complete Article

We have a new listing.  It is a PRIME retail/office space on Hillsborough  Av in Tampa.

For further details, please see:

the Retail Space Website &

the Loopnet Listing Flyer

Tampa Retail Space – Video

4123 W Hillsborough Av
Tampa, Fl 33614

For further details, please contact:

Eric W Odum, Broker
813.514.1070

Ok, So I am a computer and data geek?  What can I say?  Since the time I was young, I had trouble recalling names, places and what I did the day before, but I sure as heck could recite names, numbers and statistics of the Miami Dolphin’s 1972 football team.  I also loved to use sports stats and trends to try to predict who was going to have a break out season the next year.

Well, not much has changed.  As I move (ungracefully, I might add) in to middle age, as a Commercial Real Estate Broker, I still love looking at and searching for that number or statistic that might provide a clue as to where we are headed before the economic data tells us where we have been.  I recently found this tool on Google Finance.  It allows you to track relative Google searches in specific sectors of the economy.  It does not track the specific number of searches, but rather those searches in relation to the entire Google network.

Here is a graph in relation to real estate searches:

A couple of things jump out, besides the fact that relative real estate searches have decreased substantially since the peak of the real estate bubble.  Relative searches for real estate drop off the face of the earth after the first week of August.   Unsurprisingly, this reveals to me the disproportionate number of look-ups for residential real estate as compared to commercial.  The number of real estate sales are skewed to the residential side and residential sales taper off after school starts in August.  Commercial sales tend to follow economic trends and year end tax selling or buying, rather than when little Johnny or Sally start school.  (I won’t even get in to the fact that most of the commercial real estate industry has been dragged kicking and screaming in to the Internet age, and in the CRE world, the Internet still has not gained even a fraction of the traction compared to that the residential real estate world.)

But, we can absolutely deduct that there is some correlation between the residential and commercial markets.  It is easy to reason that if residential buyers are out looking for second homes, newer homes or investment homes, there will also be a spill over in to interest in commercial investment properties (strip centers, single tenant net-lease deals, multi-family, etc).  The two types of sales are not necessarily mutually exclusive and completely detached from one another.

Anyway the point is, if Google reports a relative increase in real estate related searches, it is reasonable to draw a conclusion that sales of real estate will in all likelihood follow.  And, if it is an accurate assumption, Google may be one of the leading indicators of real estate sales and activities.  I will revisit this tool over the next several quarters and see if there is in fact any correlation.

I would also love to see Google tweak this tool.  You can make comparative graphs on the tool currently, if there is a corresponding Google symbol for the subject data.  But, it would be nice to break out commercial real estate against residential.  It would also be nice to break out the commercial real estate sectors (such as retail, industrial, etc.) or regions (Miami or Orlando, versus the Tampa Bay area commercial real estate markets) and to my knowledge there are currently no symbols to identify these data descriptors.

Unfortunately, the Tampa Area unemployment rate continues to climb. Until the unemployment rate increases reverses its negative trend, the area commercial real estate vacancy rates will continue to be under pressure.

The Tampa Bay area’s jobless rate jumped half a percentage point to 12.3 percent, making it the most job-challenged major metropolitan area in Florida. The region’s most sluggish county remained Hernando, which saw its unemployment rate rocket to 14.7 percent, up from 14.0 percent the prior month….from the St Pete Times (for complete article)

(TAMPA, FL) — As vacancy in the metro Tampa office market climbs and rents recede, property owners and investors continue to look for the turning point that will signal the onset of an economic recovery.

Marcus & Millichap predicts a 20.5 percent vacancy rate by year end. Rents are forecast to slide 7.9 percent to $17.23 per square foot.

To see complete story on the Real Estate Channel’s “Commercial Real Estate Round Up.”