Research Park Closes Land Deal With ICP

Despite a 13% vacancy level in the east Orange County office submarket, the 26-year-old Research Park is leasing 231 acres for 10 years at the north end of the adjoining 2,900-acre International Corporate Park--a property that has been largely dormant for 20 years next to the University of Central Florida campus on Alafaya Trail.

Details on the lease were not immediately disclosed. The Orange County Research and Development Authority, a public agency, operates the park. Brokers intimate with the park's operations tell GlobeSt.com the 100%-leased Research Park has existing acreage to develop another 2.4 million sf that should be built out by 2010. But the park needs the additional land to develop large projects expected to be in demand over the next 10 years, area industrial brokers tell GlobeSt.com.

"What this deal tells you is that Orlando is on the way to snaring some big [space] users in the next couple of years," a Downtown broker who has worked on several leasing deals at Research Park tells GlobeSt.com. "By reserving the extra dirt now, the park is getting ready to accommodate those big users, ahead of anyone else who might be trying to sell them on their own product."

National and local corporations at the park employ 10,000 workers earning an average annual salary of $72,000, according to previously announced data from the county's Research and Development Authority. Among the park's larger tenants are the Army Simulation Training and Instrumentation Command, the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division and the Air Force Modeling and Simulation Office. The average asking base rent range is $20 to $22 per sf.

In the largest industrial investment deal of its kind this year, Grosse Pointe Development Co. of Fort Myers and Bouwfonds Property Finance Co. of the Netherlands paid Dallas-based Oakridge Investments Inc. $41.5 million, or $17,291 per acre, for International Corporate Park in June. The park is 12 miles southeast of Downtown.