These Areas Are Growing Faster Than The Market Average

Originally constructed in 1924, 490 First Avenue South consists of three modern and integrated buildings with additions being completed in 1968 and 1988.

ORLANDO—Westshore is still posting strong numbers on the office front—and no one expects that to stop. Indeed, it was one of the first Tampa submarkets to flourish after the Great Recession and rental rates are poised to keep rising over the next year, potentially to levels never yet seen. “Westshore, one of Tampa’s largest submarkets with roughly 12.7 million square feet of rentable office space, accounted for 57% of net absorption for the entire market in the first half of 2016,” Clay Witherspoon, principal and managing director of Avison Young’s Tampa office, tells GlobeSt.com. “No construction is in the pipeline, and likely no new projects will avail during this cycle.” Tampa Bay’s economy is still improving. The region has sustained an unemployment rate decline, with 4.5% as of February 2016. That’s a 100-bps dip year-over-year. If new development does not occur, Tampa will run out of class A office space in less than two years. So says Anne-Marie Ayers, first vice president of CBRE Tampa. You can read more of her perspectives here. As Witherspoon sees it, asking rental rates at class A office buildings in the northern corridor of Westshore. That, he says, is where epicenter of the submarket has shifted towards Spruce Street and Boy Scout Boulevard. “These areas are growing faster than the market’s average,” he says. “Cass A buildings that have been further enhanced through capital improvement programs are pushing $30 per square foot for prime floors.”