RETAIL

Brad Peterson
Senior managing director
HFF
Orlando

“A lot of the retail projects that are on the south side of town that appeal to tourism are doing very well. Tenants want to be in Florida, and investors want to be in Florida. While there are more deals available out there for sale, they’re still far short of demand. On the real A-plus stuff, it’s a feeding frenzy. It’s like throwing a chicken in the piranha tank. If there were large vacancies that were in high-quality submarkets in good centers, they’ve been taken. The top-tier tenants are actually scrambling for good sites.”

MULTIFAMILY

Batey McGraw
Walchle Lear
Jacksonville Beach

“The market is still very strong. It’s good not only from a property performance standpoint. It’s good from an investor standpoint. On the development side, the market has really cranked up over the last 18 to 24 months with projects in the pipeline in the major markets in Florida. In certain submarkets in certain cities, you might see an overconcentration of new construction.”

INDUSTRIAL

Amy Curry
Senior vice president, asset manager
IndCor Properties
Miami

“We’ve got about 7 million square feet spread across Florida. We’re very well leased in Dade. We’ve been able to push rents. The Airport West-Doral submarket has been leading the charge. A couple of the drivers would be the infrastructure improvements under way at the port and international trade. Broward is headed in the right direction. Central Florida lags south Florida. There just hasn’t been quite enough positive absorption.”

LAND SALES

Reese Stigliano
Senior vice president
Brenner Real Estate Group
Fort Lauderdale

“We’re starting to see that the guys who were on the sidelines doing the home remodeling and small jobs are getting back into the home-building business. Most of the land the banks have owned, they’ve sold it. There’s finished land with infrastructure, streets, sewer, water. That went first. The second, being sold now, is approved and zoned but nothing built on it. We’re two-thirds into the frenzy mode. The last phase was buying any piece of land available and trying to convert it into residential.”

OFFICE

Ryan Kratz
President / Tampa Bay, central Florida, southwest Florida
Colliers International
Tampa

“The submarkets that are experiencing the best results are, not surprisingly, Westshore and downtown Tampa. They have always been the most desirable submarkets. What’s changed is the availability of Class A space has declined. At least six building owners in Westshore have raised their rates by 50 cents to $2 per square foot in recent months. It’s been years since we’ve seen anything like that. There’s still a huge amount of space available on the east side of Tampa.”