The three-story, 105,000-sf University Corporate Center Two has broken ground in the Quadrangle Office Park in east Orlando, one of the area's strongest submarkets with a vacancy mark of 9.5%.

Completion is expected in January 2003. The site is at 11474 Corporate Blvd.

The company's first project, University Corporate Center One built in 1999, was also a spec venture. That 124,175-sf building at 3501 Quadrangle Blvd. is 100% leased. Projected full-service rents at University Corporate Center Two will average $20.50 per sf.

"Opus South has had tremendous success within the University submarket," Ryan P. Stahl, the firm's real estate manager, tells GlobeSt.com. "The continued strength of this submarket has allowed us to kick off University Center Two on a completely speculative basis."

Another positive element going for the project is the floor size. At 35,000 sf, the space could attract a single user such as a national call center, area brokers familiar with the submarket tell GlobeSt.com.

Stahl declines to disclose the construction or development cost of the building. But area construction industry estimators tell GlobeSt.com on condition of anonymity the class A project can't be built today for under $150 per sf or an estimated total $16 million.

Tenants will be offered free surface parking based on 4.7 spaces per 1,000 rentable sf. That ratio compares with some Downtown buildings where the standard is two spaces per 1,000 sf leased.

Opus South's project is arriving as office construction starts in metro Orlando are at their lowest level since the mid-1990s. Seven projects totaling 844,000 sf are all that is in the development pipeline for this year, according to a market forecast by Frank W. Herring Jr., president, St. Joe Commercial.

"The market is moving toward better equilibrium," Herring tells GlobeSt.com. "There is much more discipline in the market this time than during the last recession" in the early 1990s.