ORLANDO-Hotelbeds USA, a travel wholesaler catering to the group travel market, signed a 20,000-square foot lease at Phase IV, a 85,500-square-foot building, at the Sand Lake West Business Park in southwest Orlando. The lease, which was signed in the first quarter of 2010, is for 12 years and the tenant is getting one year free.

The reason that the lease is so long, says Anne Deason Spencer, vice president of the Office Services Group at Grubb & Ellis Commercial Florida in Orlando, who represented the tenant, is that HotelBeds USA, wanted to take advantage of the lower lease rates which are available today. In three or four years, the rates will go up, she says.

Hotelbeds USA is a division of Tui Travel,PLC which is based in the United Kingdom. The company will be using the space as an international call center, says Deason Spencer. Tui is currently located at another office park in Orlando, also in a single-story flex building, but Hotelbeds USA grew and needed more space, she says. The company will occupy the new space at the end of the year when the buildout is complete.

Paul Reynolds, vice president at CB Richard Ellis in Orlando, who represented the landlord in the transaction, Sand Lake West Business Park, Inc. of New York, says that the park, which has 533,000 square feet in nine buildings which are in five phases, is 88% leased. The park was built between 1981 and 1991 and has about 25 acres of additional buildable land with 410,000 square feet.