Three New Industrial Buildings Planned for Orlando

(Save the date: RealShare Industrial 2012 comes to The Bankers Club, Miami, December 5 - 6.)

ORLANDO—Orlando is seeing a trio of new industrial buildings break ground. McCraney Property Company and Clarion Partners have entered into a joint venture to develop three industrial buildings on 25.3 acres at Orlando Central Park.

Steven McCraney, founder and president of McCraney, tells GlobeSt.com Orlando and the Interstate 4 corridor have an extremely bright future. Indeed, after five years of challenges Orlando’s industrial market is picking up.  

“Today, the Orlando market had the highest industrial occupancy rates in the state and is now experiencing the greatest absorption with 1.1 million square feet leased in the second quarter this year, for a six-month total of 2.4 million square feet,” McCraney says. “That’s a gain of over 19 percent and the third consecutive quarter of positive absorption. The overall vacancy rate has fallen 10.7 and continues to fall. The Orlando industrial market is poised for a strong comeback.”

In addition to the 150,000 square-foot Dade Paper building, which is under construction, Clarion and McCraney are developing two additional industrial buildings on spec with rentable space totaling 225,000 square feet. The joint venture partners have already started planning the spec buildings. The first spec industrial building will break ground in the first quarter of 2013.

The JV is betting that tenant size for these buildings will range from 20,000 to 40,000 square feet. However, McCraney also reports consistent interest from full-building users seeking new construction in well-located industrial assets. The spec developments will be the only industrial buildings with direct exposure to John Young Parkway and located at the entrance of Orlando Central Park. That helped the JV win financing for the industrial developments.

“While most banks say they’re lending today, we have found that lending has to fit into a very tidy box of criteria to get transactions done,” McCraney says. “Specifically, Dade Paper Company has a long history of success coupled with a strong balance sheet, and signed onto a long-term lease. In Florida, there are very few large build-to-suits this year. When we presented this transaction to the lending market, we found extensive strong interest because of the size of the transaction, the quality of the customer, and the length of the lease terms.”