Soft Tourist Pockets Dent Strong Retail Rung

ORLANDO-Despite an overall lowered vacancy rate to 7.25% and increased rents to an average $18.35 per sf, the metro area’s 52 million-sf retail market still has soft spots, especially in the tourist-oriented submarkets of suburban Kissimmee and the north end of International Drive in south Orlando.

Speaking to delegates at the 2003 Florida Conference of the International Council of Shopping Centers here, Trammell Crow Co. senior vice president C. Whitney Knoll says the completion of the one million-sf Festival Bay shopping center “does not offer much hope that this development will reinvent this submarket, as it is still 50% vacant and shopper traffic is slow.”

Knoll expects the International Drive and Kissimmee submarkets to have “increased vacancy in the next 12 months.” The 2.92 million-sf I-Drive market is 16.21% vacant, up from 9.77% vacancy at this time last year. The one million-sf Kissimmee tourist hub is 10.29% vacant, up from 1.83% vacancy in May 2002. Average rents are $22.83 per sf on I-Drive; $22.90 in the Kissimmee tourist hub.