Rendina Cos. Senior Vice President Peter Reed tells GlobeSt.com that the project is expected to attract professionals who live in Wellington and Royal Palm Beach and want to shorten their commute into West Palm Beach. He added that this project differs from others in the area under construction in urban, infill areas due to its size. "We're doing something on a larger scale in a suburban setting," Reed says. "There has been tremendous growth in this area and there is strong demand for office space."

The project will accommodate offices ranging in size from 920 sf to 40,000 sf. Tenants can obtain traditional office leases or office leases with equity participation. They can also own space through fee-simple office condominium ownership arrangements. Reed says the equity participation option has been very popular with tenants in the company's other medical office properties. "In this changing real estate environment, with various financing issues, we are seeing prospects searching for diverse opportunities of their real property needs," Reed says.

Tenants representing a total of 200,000 sf have shown interest in the property, with the company working on contracts for 20,000 to 30,000 sf of the space. "The most demand has been with the purchasing option," Reed says.

According to a Grubb & Ellis Q3 office market report for Palm Beach County, demand for office space continues to be strong, particularly in suburban areas. The county's overall vacancy rate at the end of the quarter was 10% with 243,699 sf of positive absorption during the quarter. Asking rents for class A office space averaged $30.47 per sf and $23.98 per sf for class B space.

The report notes that market conditions in the Royal Palm Beach/Wellington submarket are particularly strong. The market has a total of 298,005 sf, of which only 1,689 sf is vacant, equaling a vacancy rate of 0.6%. There is currently 136,875 sf under construction and average asking rents are $28 per sf.