FL: Industrial Potential Bright Spot

CORAL GABLES, FL-Though the South Florida market continues limping toward bottom, small indications show that things could be stabilizing. The retail and office sectors are still stagnant, but the industrial sector is starting to stir.

Stephen Nostrand, executive vice president, Colliers Abood Wood-Fay says that, on the positive side, vacancies among industrial product haven’t climbed as dramatically as many had predicted. “We thought we’d see a 100% rise in vacancies,” he tells GlobeSt.com. It never happened; industrial vacancies in Dade County moved from 9% to 10% in Dade County, from 8% to 10% in Broward County and from about 11.5% to 12% in Palm Beach County. “The absorption will follow,” Nostrand comments. “You have to stabilize first though, and that’s kind of what’s happening now.”

The figures also indicate, however, that absorption may already be taking its cue. A quick glance at the industrial sector in the Miami-Dade County area shows a stabilized absorption. Certainly 1.3 million square feet was given back, the same as last quarter. The good news is that it wasn’t any worse. Broward County’s absorption, in the meantime, improved from a negative one million square feet to approximately negative 750,000 square feet. Palm Beach, too, showed a negative 400,000 square feet absorption, but a vast improvement over the close to 800,000 square feet of negative absorption experienced during Q2 2009.