John Lambert: If you look at the state as a whole, we're in line with the recovery of the nation. But if you look at some specific submarkets, we're doing very well. We're tracking 12 growth markets across the country, and Florida has four of them: Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach and Orlando. A lot of people combine Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach, but we break them out.

Last year, South Florida – Miami/Dade – really took off. It was amazing to watch in the third and fourth quarters. But from what I've seen in the last quarter [2012] and first quarter [2013] statistics, South Florida has taken a deep breath. It's slowed down a little bit. In terms of housing, it's amazing what they've absorbed in the condo market down there. They're talking about getting the cranes out and additional units going up. In South Florida, housing has definitely tightened up and we're seeing significant growth.

As you move up the coast, Miami/Dade has 4% retail vacancy overall. Once again, we're starting to see site plans come back out. We're seeing that across the state: From South Florida to Miami/Dade to Fort Lauderdale up to Daytona and Orlando, we're seeing large mixed-use projects with significant retail components that were mothballed being dusted off and brought back to market. We are definitely into recovery.

GlobeSt.com: You're talking about new construction?

Lambert: Yes. I'm cautiously optimistic. But when you look into the forecast, we don't see any big spikes in growth in Florida in '13 and '14. You know how long these projects take to get fully entitled and then get under construction. We're looking at 3% growth, 3.2% in 2013; 3.2%, 3.4% in 2014, and a little bit better in 2015. By '15 we'll see the results of what we're seeing today.

[In addition,] there were a few years in which Florida had negative population growth for the first time in memory. That turned around and we have positive in-migration. People in northern states can now sell their homes and move.

GlobeSt.com: How is retail leasing doing?

Lambert: You have to look at each individual market, but the state has definitely tightened up. In the last two years, we've done a lot of restaurant deals. As an example, we have a 47,000-square-foot sporting goods store soon to begin construction and a 23,000-square-foot Total Wine under construction in Kendall. We're talking to quite a few theaters. We represent Studio Movie Grill, a dine-in theater concept across the country. They're looking in Tampa and Orlando. The entertainment sector has picked up first. Publix, the regional grocer here, has pretty substantial growth. The wireless providers are still driving. We've seen quite a few fitness centers come in and continue to expand. Walmart has a big push for its Neighborhood Market grocery concept, with multiple units in every major metro area that they can get into.

GllobeSt.com: Is still a retailer's market?

Lambert: Landlords are still cutting some pretty favorable economic deals to fill the boxes that were emptied out during the depression. Our statistics show that our major power center rents declined 3% from 2011 to 2012, but our lead tenant rep, Sean McConnell, last month had a property tour with a national 40,000-square-foot tenant. They went from Melbourne, FL., on the East Coast, to Central Florida, to Tampa. Sean told me it was absolutely amazing how much space was not available. So many boxes have been re-leased. South Florida has a sub-4 percent vacancy rate, so that's where you'll see development first. Central Florida, which I call Orlando/Tampa, has tightened up as well.

GlobeSt.com: When will the rest of Florida catch up?

Lambert: Southwest Florida is still pretty flat. Jacksonville is still pretty flat, not a lot of growth.

GlobeSt.com: How is Jones Lang LaSalle responding to this growth?

Lambert:

We are staffing up. We made the decision in late 2011 that we really needed to go into the tenant rep business. To that end, we recruited Sean McConnell from CBRE, and then also two brokers in South Florida, Dan Moriarty and Chris Ralph. We're in a recruiting mode, speaking with two other brokers in the Tampa market. We're going to strategically place tenant reps in those markets. … We really let everybody know our teams are Florida-based. We will build in those markets as the workload warrants. And it's just coming in waves.

One of the things we really want to get more involved in – we have a huge project going on in Kendall, the Palms at Town & Country. We really focus on doing additional redevelopment work. That's part of our staffing up, as well.