Tight Orlando Industrial Market to See New 1M SF Project
Commercial brokerage firm JLL reports that Whitley Capital expects to break ground on the first phase of the project in early 2020.
ORLANDO, FL—Whitley Capital of Winter Park, FL has acquired a 72-acre site here and plans to develop a new industrial development totaling approximately 1 million square feet of new space.
Commercial brokerage firm JLL reports that Whitley Capital expects to break ground on the first phase of the project in early 2020. JLL SVP of capital markets Bret Felberg, EVP Josh Lipoff and managing director Jeff Morris represented the seller.
The project site is located at the intersection of West Taft Vineland Road and South Orange Avenue, which provides visibility and accessibility in the highly sought-after South Orlando industrial corridor. No financial terms of the transaction or the estimated cost of the project were disclosed.
“We are very happy to be the new owners of this property, as it’s the best site left for industrial development in the core market,” says Stephen Whitley, principal of Whitley Capital. “The land was a family farm for decades. I’ve been developing property in the area for over 20 years and always had my eye on the site, so when it came to market, I was determined to buy it. This 72-acre site can support roughly 1 million square feet of industrial space. We expect to break ground on the first phase in early 2020.”
JLL’s Lipoff and SVP Mike Borling will be handling the leasing of the future industrial park on behalf of Whitley Capital.
“We have the strategic advantage in the marketplace by having the ability to offer future tenant’s buildings that range in size from 100,000 square feet to 550,000 square feet within a centralized location—a true rarity for the core,:” Lipoff says. “With the industrial real estate sector remaining strong nationally, Central Florida and the I-4 Corridor will continue to remain the preference for statewide distribution purposes—as the midway point between Atlanta and Miami, a major distribution corridor for the Southeast.”
Southeast Orange County, after peaking at 9.1% in 2013, vacancy has more than halved to stand at 4.4%. Asking rents have steadily increased since the start of 2017; up 9.6% during the last two years to stand at $6.05-per-square-foot, according to JLL. Leasing activity has also been solid—2.4 million square feet was leased in 2018, 5.3 million square feet in 2017, and 3.6 million square feet in 2016 with a 10-year average of 2.8 million square feet.