Two Tenants Take 353,581-SF Bite Out of Industrial Market

The overall average asking rates in these locations in the Airport West submarket range between $6.88 per sf and $7.31 per sf, according to data by Scott Sime, managing director of the CB Richard Ellis office here. Sime represented the owner in the DHL transaction and declined to disclose the terms of the long-term lease. Jose Juncadella, SVP of Coral Gables-based Codina Realty Services, represented DHL.

DHL is consolidating several of its local operations into the new location at 12300 Northwest 25th St., where it will house its South Florida contract logistics operations. The property is being refurbished to the tenant's specific needs, and the move represents an expansion of warehouse space, required to "enhance value to [DHL's] customers in the region," Sime says, specifically pointing to increased business in Florida and Latin America.

The overall industrial vacancy rate for the county dropped from 7.3% to 6.6% at the end of 2004, according to the CBRE report. "Concessions and free rent, which were prevalent in the market 12 months ago, have largely dissipated," Sime says in the report, adding that this market "is positioned at the forefront of the nation's real estate recovery."

Beacon Lakes Business Park is a 436-acre master-planned commercial development on the last major parcel of undeveloped land in the Airport West submarket. It encompasses more than six million sf of warehouse/distribution, office and retail space for lease, land for sale and build-to-suit options.

Meanwhile, in an unrelated transaction, Richard Linevsky of the local office of Grubb & Ellis, represented Software Brokers of America in its renewal at 9835 Northwest 14th St. Prologis Elkhorn Fund LP is the building owner. Terms of that lease are also undisclosed.

International Corporate Center is about five miles to the south of the Beacon Lakes development and also within the Airport West submarket, where industrial rates are the second highest in Miami-Dade. They trail rates in the Southwest Dade submarket by less that $1 per sf.