Philadelphia’s diverse local economy, healthy hiring trends and area-employers’ ability to draw fresh talent from the metro’s deep college-graduate pool, continue to attract businesses to the area and support improvements in the office property segment. In 2016, Philadelphia firms increased payrolls by 1.9 percent with the creation of 54,000 new positions. Hiring was driven by office-using employment sectors which, over the four-quarter period ending with the second quarter of 2016, accounted for the addition of 21,700 jobs, or nearly 37 percent of all new hires. This year, it is expected that the local workforce will add 49,000 to its ranks, representing a 1.7 percent expansion. Hiring will continue to be strong among office-using companies, as well as in the healthcare and education segments. In the first half of 2016, developers sluggishly completed 178,000 square feet of new office space. In the second half of last year, the construction pipeline exploded, and by year-end 1.2 million square feet of office space had been delivered to the marketplace, with a significant amount of completions pre-leased, which helped mitigate any effects to vacancy levels. Office projects completed in 2016 were spread throughout the metro within the submarkets of Delaware County, Lehigh-Northampton, Harrisburg Area …
When it comes to the Philadelphia real estate market, the retail industry is the hot topic for many commercial real estate agents. Per a Center City district report released in early December of 2016, the city has experienced a $1 billion surge in retail spending. Subsequently, prime retail rents in Philadelphia have risen by almost 90 percent in the past five years — second to only Miami when compared to cities across the nation. Sales of retail centers in center city peaked in late 2016 at over 18 percent higher than their former top-most numbers, seen in 2008. Popular Philadelphia areas such as Walnut and Chestnut streets have been subject to high-end retail rush. The retail spending increase is thought to be a direct result of the Philadelphia metropolitan area’s new job positions. Going into the fourth quarter, the city increased its jobs by 2.2 percent compared to the previous year’s numbers. Philadelphia’s local rate of employment stood at over half a percent higher than the national employment rate in late 2016. Many of the new positions — created in well- paying, upper-echelon employment sectors — have facilitated a rise in the median household income, and subsequently the disposable income, …
In the office segment there has been plenty of news regarding Class A assets. Companies have been flocking towards upgraded space. Landlords have made significant capital expenditures to their buildings to attract and retain these tenants. We have seen parking decks being built, investments to achieve LEED certification and the addition of upgraded amenities, such as cafés, fitness facilities, day care centers, and shuttles to mass transit. In the midst of these discussions, the Class B building seems to be getting lost. Class B office buildings do not have all of the bells and whistles of their Class A counterparts. However, this has not stopped them from experiencing a resurgence over the last few years. Current vacancy of Class B office space in the Northern New Jersey market is 13.4 percent. The vacancy rate has seen a steady decline from 15 percent at the end of 2014. The asking rents in the market average around $21.50 based on a gross number. The absorption of space over the last two years has been the best we have seen in more than 10 years. According to CoStar, 1.1 million square feet of Class B office space was leased in Northern New Jersey …
Rochester’s story is similar to those of other cities with once prominent downtowns. Starting in the 1970s, businesses and families largely fled to the suburbs as newer and nicer suburban offices were built. Larger companies, including many staple downtown dwellers such as large law and accounting firms, left the downtown in search of free parking, shorter commutes and a suburban lifestyle for their employees. Yet Rochester was a small city with big businesses. Bausch & Lomb was founded in Rochester in 1853. Eastman Kodak started business there in 1888 and beginning in 1906, Xerox Corporation was formed. Kodak is still based in Rochester, though it is a much smaller entity than it was before the digital era, and Xerox moved to Norwalk, Connecticut, years ago. However, the core technology culture never left Rochester. Over the past few years the University of Rochester — the area’s largest employer — received more than $1.9 billion in research money, most of it from the federal government. Organizations like High Tech Rochester, Greater Rochester Enterprise and the Rochester Downtown Innovation Zone have played important roles in the region’s comeback. In 2015, the Rochester region won a nationwide competition and was named the site for …
The Capital Region continues to experience low vacancy rates across the industrial sector. The region’s growth over the last decade has primarily been driven by multibillion-dollar investments by GlobalFoundries, a semiconductor foundry, and State University of New York Polytechnic Institute (known as SUNY Poly). With limited new construction and virtually no spec-built facilities, the rates on existing spaces have finally experienced some rental appreciation after remaining relatively flat over the decade from 2005 to 2015. For the most part, the region has seen existing tenants shifting to new locations within the marketplace as opposed to companies entering to the marketplace for the first time. Generally, new entrants to the market that have some technology component to their business are locating at the SUNY Poly campus or related facilities. One of the most notable recent transactions was the $57 million sale of The Beltrone Portfolio to The Rosenblum Companies. The portfolio totaled 23 buildings made up of a mix of office and industrial properties. The industrial assets included 10 buildings that would be classified as Class A and B product. Historically the entire portfolio maintained a low vacancy status and at the time of sale it was approximately 5 percent vacant. …
Driven by strong leasing activity, the New Hampshire Seacoast industrial market now has a limited supply of available options. The overall Seacoast vacancy rate is currently 5.6 percent. Compare that to the end of 2010, when vacancy in the market hit 12.9 percent. Narrowing the focus to the Portsmouth industrial market (excluding the Pease Tradeport), the vacancy hit 8 percent in 2010 but it had dropped to 3 percent at the end of 2015 — and at the end of June 2016, the vacancy rate hovered at 2 percent. This significant drop in vacancy leaves users with less viable product to choose from and is pushing them away from the Interstate 95 corridor of Portsmouth and Seabrook. Industrial Users Turn to Ground-Up Development Users in Portsmouth and surrounding communities, unable to find existing buildings to meet their needs, have turned to ground-up development in areas outside of Portsmouth and further away from the Interstate 95 corridor. Two large industrial users, Rand Whitney and Stonewall Kitchen, broke ground on projects in 2015 and have recently moved into their new facilities. Rand Whitney, part of the Kraft Group, originally opened a corrugated cardboard sheet plant in Dover back in 1972. Over the …
Employment gains in New Haven and Fairfield counties, coupled with a bustling job market in the New York City metro, have generated high demand for apartments in New Haven and Fairfield counties, overcoming some of the recent negative optics in Connecticut. Newly hired employees are looking for housing. Employers in New Haven and Fairfield counties are set to add 10,500 individuals to the local workforce this year. And although a significant number of tenants work in the boroughs of New York, they prefer Connecticut rentals due to a significant price differential. Even after considering costs for commuting, the value proposition New Haven and Fairfield counties remains very robust as average rents are priced at approximately $2,000 less per month than those in New York City. Market demand for housing in these two counties will create upward pressure on rent this year, advancing average effective rent 1.6 percent to $1,635 per month. In 2015, effective rent closed the year at $1,609 per month — an 18.3 percent pace of growth since 2011. Builders will deliver 2,100 apartments in New Haven and Fairfield counties in 2016, a reduction from the 3,550 apartments that were delivered in 2015; and they are focusing on …
New York City’s retail outlook is sunny, as steady labor market expansion — bolstered by substantial Fortune 500 hiring — has spurred retailer demand for existing and new spaces in all five boroughs. Strong retail property performance in the City That Never Sleeps has supported continued rent and price growth, which will result in higher sales velocity over the short- and mid-terms. Employment Gains, Tourism Underlie Performance During the first six months of 2016, New York City employers created 33,600 new jobs. This pronounced job growth, which has been characteristic of the current cycle, reduced the unemployment rate to 5 percent by the end of the first quarter. This is the lowest rate unemployment rate the city has seen since November 2007. By the end of the year, area employers will add 90,000 workers, with the education and health services and professional and business services sectors projected to post the greatest increases. The leisure and hospitality sector will also contribute significantly to employment gains this year, as greater tourism spending prompts organizations in the sector to ramp up hiring. Another important indicator of NYC’s economic health is strong retail sales, which represent one of the best paces of retail spending …
The Connecticut industrial market has changed. The days of large corporate surplus assets littering our industrial parks, mid-teen vacancy rates and discounted lease rates are over — or at least on a hiatus. In the last few years, the market has tightened with many of the larger blocks of space absorbed by various local and national tenants. The last 20 to 25 years saw corporate consolidations, downsizing and the move to cheaper markets dominate our industrial landscape. Left behind were inefficient, large manufacturing facilities in a market losing its manufacturing base. As time went by, these idle, surplus assets were acquired by local and regional investors who eventually made these properties functional again. Over the years, steady absorption has chipped away at vacancy rates, and quality available product has become increasingly difficult to find for tenants. Traditionally, an industrial tenant needing 100,000 square feet or greater would have numerous alternatives to consider and a wide range of quality too. This gave tenants enormous leverage, allowing them to negotiate more flexible and favorable terms and conditions. The relatively recent shift in tide has allowed landlords to control the process and we’ve seen a corresponding upward tick in lease rates. The sales …
Fairfield County, Connecticut, which has traditionally been home to many multi-national financial tenants, is transitioning to become one of the most diverse business environments in the region and attracting some of the biggest names from the TAMI (technology, advertising, media and information), creative, engineering and corporate arenas. This shift in the fabric of the business community may be attributed to major investments made by a number of owners to improve and reposition their office properties to meet the demands of this new type of tenant. Owners are virtually creating new tenant experiences in their buildings, with office space boasting technological efficiencies and tenant amenities designed to support a balance between professional and personal needs. The “if you build, he will come,” quote made famous in the movie Field of Dreams is certainly apropos when looking at the trend of newly renovated properties attracting some of the best tenants in the market. A perfect example is the success at Merritt 7, a six-building, 1.4 million-square-foot office complex that recently completed more than 600,000 square feet of new leases — including a recent 133,000-square-foot lease by Datto Inc., one of the fastest- growing information technology firms in the world for its global …