Ryan Kratz, president of Colliers International Tampa Bay, Central Florida ad Southwest Florida

MIAMI—The Tampa Bay area has a strong and growing economy, healthy job growth, and an office market with declining vacancy rates and rising rents. Considering these factors, new office development might sound like a worthwhile and welcome addition to the area.

Why, then, has the market seen little to no new office development in recent years? GlobeSt.com spoke to Ryan Kratz, president of Colliers of International Florida, for his take on Tampa's lack of new office construction and the general state of the area's office market in part one of this this exclusive interview.

GlobeSt.com: Can you describe the overall climate of the Tampa Bay office market and explain how the current lack of new development is affecting it?

Kratz: The Tampa Bay office market is healthy in terms of leasing and sales activity. Vacancy rates are near all-time lows at 11.6% and are expected to decline further as we move into the third quarter of 2017.

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Office rental rates are also reaching all-time highs at many of the market's top properties. Most local office buildings that are for sale have been receiving multiple strong offers at attractive prices and cap rates.

The absence of new office development has provided stability for current investors pursuing Tampa Bay's office market, as they have not needed to accommodate for the market action/reaction that occurs when new buildings are introduced to the market.

GlobeSt.com: Why has new development been non-existent?

Kratz: First, new office development would require rental rates of $36 to $39 per square foot to support new suburban or central business district construction in the Tampa Bay market. Today's top-of-market rental rates are 15 to 20% below these rates, so the pricing delta has been a bit too high to entice enough tenants to commit to occupying new construction.

Second, lenders are sensitive to where the industry is at in the cycle. Their underwriting parameters on loan-to-cost, tenant quality and pre-leasing requirements have tightened.

Third, while occupancy rates have improved, the market overall is not active enough to justify adding a significant amount of new supply. In other words, demand is not quite high enough at this time.

Finally, the speed of change in professional services firms today, often due to technological advances, makes signing 10-year leases difficult for tenants trying to forecast their next three to five years in business. The absence of pre-committed long-term leases makes starting new construction even harder.

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