"In the first quarter of this year, there were a number of new and renewing tenants, who signed large leases," for extended periods, says Richey. But the examples he gives are of corporate tenants' leases. Among those he cited are Fidelity National Information Services, Inc., which signed a nine-year, nine-month lease around January 1 for 103,786 square feet in the Maitland Summit III building, a class A office building in Maitland. The asking rent was $19 per square foot.
At the Pointe, a class A office building in Tampa, Wells Fargo signed a 10-year lease for 47,055 square feet in March, where the asking rate was $26 to $28 per square foot. And, at 8420 Boggy Creek Rd. in Orlando, around January 1st, Coca Cola Enterprises signed a lease for a 70,362-square-foot warehouse. The asking rate there was $6.00 to $6.50 per square foot.
Although Richey did not give the actual rents for the transactions mentioned above, he says, "It's a tenant's market and low rates will continue for a while."
Rick Siems, director of research services for the Tampa office of Cushman & Wakefield, says that asking rental rates for office and industrial space in Florida are down 20% to 25% since the beginning of the financial crisis. "Landlords are sitting on so much vacant space," he says, that many are still offering lower rates, free rent and short-term leases, sometimes as little as three years, at the same time that leasing activity is up slightly over the last couple of months.
In 2008 and 2009, says Richey, a number of tenants asked their landlords to reduce their rent to the level of current market rates, even if their leases were not up for a year or two. "They said to their landlords, 'I will extend my lease if you give me a deal,'" and many were successful.
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