Airport Landlords Have a Leg Up

In the MIA industrial market, landlords rule. State Street Realty prez George Pino tells us the pendulum has swung back to a landlord's market. (Yet another way industrial real estate is like Game of Thrones.)

Class-A industrial space under 50k SF in the Miami Airport submarket is extremely tight, George says--vacancies are about 2% (you'd need to rub some butter or oil on your forklift just to shimmy it in there), giving any landlord with remaining space the upper hand. Demand is high, too. Over the last month, State Street has brought the 350k SF Prologis International Corporate Park, which it reps, to 100% occupancy with the closing of over 100k SF in deals. Limited supply and light spec development will likely lead to a continuation of rental growth through 2014.

On the office side, while vacancy has decreased markedly for Class-A space in Airport West, it's definitely not yet a landlords' market, Hogan Group VP Steve Smith tells us. (It's a renters' world... we're all just leasing in it.) "But we're reducing concessions such as free rent and the amount of the TI allowance," he says, adding that vacancy would have to come down in to the single digits in both Airport West and Coral Gables to see rental rate increases.

Recently, Steve repped TIAA-CREF, owner of 5201 Waterford in the Waterford At Blue Lagoon office park near MIA, in a 9,000 SF lease with Airbus Americas. The space will support sales operations for the aviation company and brings the building to 93% leased. (But you know the old saying that we just made up, "The last 7% is the sweetest.") It follows recent renewals with Ricoh Americas, TW Telecom, and others. JLL's Catarina Jimenez repped Airbus Americas in the deal.

Fractured Condos Get Refi

The South Florida condo crash might have been five years ago, but there are still fractured condo projects in need of refi--and some lenders are willing to step in and do those deals. (It's the holiday season, after all.) For the right deal and borrower, there's still financing available at great terms with flexible prepayment and releases of the individual units if that's part of the owner's long-term strategy, HC Real Estate Capital's Chris Cavelglia tells us. Recently Chris and colleague Kurt Hoffmann arranged a $12.5M refi for Briar Landing at the Enclave and Palms Point at Coral Springs, both in South Florida, which all together consist of 280 rental units within a total of 617 units.

West Kendall Retail Hot

West Kendall retail is attracting a lot of investor interest, CREC SVP Harry Blyden tells us. Recently, Harry and CREC chairman Warren Weiser repped Loeb Partners Realty in the $14M sale of the 82k SF Sunset Strip Plaza in West Kendall. The sale price for the property--which is a nice Class-B property, but not a trophy (something sensible, not too flashy... like our first car or our junior prom date) means that buyers are willing to pay for well-located retail centers in the area. The prospect of future development on this site was particularly appealing to interested buyers, Harry says, given the neighborhood's continued population growth (about half a million people already live in a five-mile radius, and more are coming).

Located at 10855 Southwest 72nd St, the property is anchored by Presidente Supermarket, Family Dollar, and Sherwin Williams. Warren says the property attracted significant buyer demand and numerous qualifying bids. CREC will continue to be the leasing agent under the new ownership, the private SPI Sunset LLC, as it has been since 2000. The property is 97% occupied, up from 88% before it was on the market.