MIAMI—Gunster attorney Brian Belt has his eyes on South Florida commercial real estate—and he's looking through the lens of developers. In part one of this exclusive interview, we asked him to point out positive and negative trends he's seeing in the field.

Belt has experience acquiring, structuring, developing, financing and restructuring complex mixed-use projects and mixed-use hospitality projects. He has represented national developer of Ritz Carlton, Four Seasons and other five-star brand facilities.

GlobeSt.com: What trends from last year do you see spilling into this year and how impactful do you think they'll be?

Belt: While the global economy is the great unknown our deals and clients tell us that South Florida will continue to benefit from a number of favorable general factors. The first is population growth and job growth.

Second is growth of activity of the Port of Miami enhanced by infrastructure improvements, the deep dredge and Panama canal opening, and a greater share of cargo being off-loaded in the east coast ports instead of the west coast of the United States.

Third are the improvements at the Fort Lauderdale and Miami airports. Fourth is global instability and security concerns fueling acquisition of property in the US and Miami, in particular.

Fifth, there is a robust tourism industry. Miami's once seasonal tourist industry is now characterized by high year round occupancy and average daily rates. Miami is doing particularly well in the high end luxury hotels. Sixth is traffic issues also continue to be a negative factor for some of our clients and we obviously believe that this issue will remain for an extended time period.

Seventh, there is a desire by younger individuals to drive less and a remarkable decrease in the average miles driven by those individuals under 35. Eighth is the growth of construction costs is abating and in some cases actual costs are declining. As a number of the large condominium projects finish, we believe this trend will continue. We believe that there is a pipeline of other types of projects that are waiting for a reduction in construction costs.

Stay tuned for part two of this interview, in which Belt will drill down into trends in specific commercial real estate segments.

Instant Insights /

Eight CRE Trends to Watch in Florida

Related Stories

Recommended For You