Edward Easton, chairman of the Miami, FL-based Easton Group, is not surprised. "The reason is that lenders don't want to do any speculative development," Easton tells GlobeSt.com. For this to change, he says, "Net absorption will have to get up again, where it was three or four years ago." The Easton Group owns and brokers industrial properties, primarily in South Florida.

Spec development is going to go down as long as the economy is weak, says Easton. "As the economy picks up and net absorption picks up, we will see rates increase and speculative development increase," he says. Year-to-date net absorption was 586,896 sf.

The weighted average asking rental rate for industrial space dropped from $7.65 per sf gross in the second quarter to $7.44 per sf gross in Q3. Furthermore, the report states, activity under construction in Miami-Dade County fell 19% from last year's 1.2 million sf.