MIAMI—As part of Colliers International South Florida's annual Industrial Owners Forum, more than 50 institutional owners gathered in Miami. They converged to take part in a closed discussion on the state of the industrial market in South Florida, where they own properties.

Steven Wasserman, executive vice president of the Colliers International's South Florida industrial services team, hosted the forum. He sat down with GlobeSt.com to highlight the main takeaways from the discussion and the sentiment these influential leaders have about South Florida's industrial market. In part two of this exclusive interview series, he spoke about evolving industrial market trends.

“There's still a lot of excitement surrounding e-commerce and the impact it's having on brick and mortar retailers,” Wasserman tells GlobeSt.com. “While many retailers are downsizing their retail stores, there is a growing demand for distribution space as consumers are buying their products online. Distribution centers near urban cores are in high demand.”

Wasserman pointed out another trend shaping the industry: construction costs. Construction costs have been on the rise, but he expects they will most likely remain flat in 2017 as the condo construction market slows down.

“Institutional owners expect the cost of labor and construction materials to start to level off after years of increasing costs,” Wasserman says. “New development construction costs are ranging from $70 to $100 per square foot for new class A warehouse space and will most likely remain at that price throughout the year.”

On the other hand, he says, cumbersome environmental and permitting issues continue to slow the construction process down. That is forcing tenants to holdover because space takes so much longer to build out in South Florida.

Another topic of discussion was the trend of parking requirements. Institutional owners discussed the significant increase in employee and trailer parking requirements for all sites nationwide, especially “last mile” sites.

“This used to be a requirement from larger tenants but they're now seeing it from smaller tenants in the 80,000-square-foot range,” Wasserman says. “We're also seeing growing demand for cold storage facilities. As population continues to increase and lifestyle patterns change, we're seeing increasing demand for cold storage facilities. This particularly true in South Florida where suburbs are becoming urbanized.”

Instant Insights /

Monitoring Evolving Trends in South Florida Industrial Real Estate

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