This 100-Acre Industrial Park Demands Attention

MIAMI—Skyfarm Strategic Capital, a Miami-based diversified asset management company, just won approval to develop a 100-acre industrial park in Martin County's Indiantown. Dubbed the Florida Commerce Park, it's is one of the largest non-residential land developments in recent South Florida history.

Florida Commerce Park will offer up to 1.3 million buildable square feet, making it the largest-ever industrial development in Martin County. It's located off State Road 710—one of the state's main emergency routes—by SW Railroad Avenue.

“We already have a pipeline of industrial users interested in tapping into the strong demographics of South Florida,” Jeremy Shapiro, director of Corporate Real Estate Development for Skyfarm, tells GlobeSt.com. He points to a population of 8 million residents and over 650,000 businesses within a 100-mile radius of Florida Commerce Park.

“We're accessible by rail and roadways from nearly any angle, whether from east or west coasts, or ports from Miami up to Tampa,” Shapiro says. “The location's ideal for regional trade within Florida, and it's an industrial gateway for international trade and the Caribbean.”

Florida Commerce Park's approval comes at an opportune time for trade and industry in South Florida as the Panama Canal expansion, nearing completion, will double the canal's capacity and have significant trade implications for South Florida. Florida Commerce Park is poised to capitalize on that trade proliferation.

The park sits at the crossroads of commerce—along DOTs critical intermodal roadway system and CSX's main rail—offering access to Florida's east and west coasts. Florida Commerce Park is 90 minutes from PortMiami and even closer to Fort Lauderdale's Port Everglades. It's “shovel-ready,” which means businesses can obtain permit-ready parcels—1.4-100 acres in size—saving up to 12 months of permit-processing time. Project development of the park will begin within two months.

“We've reached the growth capacity for large-scale industrial development in many areas of the Tri-County region of Miami, Broward and Palm Beach, so it's only natural that development opportunities are pushing into Martin County,” says Shapiro. “We're ahead of the curve with Florida Commerce Park as we are in that path of growth, and our sites enjoy a higher coverage ratio and are therefore more cost-effective than options further south.”

The park is at high elevation to sea level, which together with its inland location, developers say provides stronger safety than coastal locations prone to tropical storms. The park sits in path of regional growth its comprehensive plan takes on the master water-management system, which translates into more buildable square feet per individual site parcel and, in turn, lower land costs.

“Florida Commerce Park will set the new gold standard for industrial parks in South Florida with its superior logistics, redundancy and sustainability,” says Neil E. Merin, chairman at NAI/Merin Hunter Codman, who handles sales and leasing at the park. “This is one of the most important new commerce parks to come on the horizon in decades.”

Park amenities include nearby hotel and restaurants, and retail and medical facilities. Indiantown is also home to diverse labor pool that businesses in Florida Commerce Park are expected to tap, boosting job growth in the region.

Indiantown has been honored nationally as a Smart Rural Community with high-tech readiness and a secure, redundant, ITS Telecom underground fiber network. Florida Commerce Park benefits from that redundancy.

The park is next to FPL's power plant, which includes the largest solar-thermal power plant in the eastern US. FPL's energy sources, together with natural gas providers and other sustainable resources, will give Florida Commerce Park uninterrupted and sustainable energy.

Florida Commerce Park aims to serve as an industrial gateway for commodities transiting the canal. Over 10.1 million long tons flowed through the canal in 2014 from Central and South America, Oceania and Asia, and the west coast of North America, to US southern Atlantic ports such as Miami and Port Everglades.

Over 13,000 vessels use the canal annually, each with a maximum capacity of 5,000 TEUs, which will increase to 13,000 TEUs with the expansion. The canal, which takes eight to 10 hours to transit, serves more than 144 maritime routes connecting some 1,700 ports worldwide. Finally, Florida Commerce is in a designated Enterprise Zone, which provides advantages in winning federal contracts.