By Yair Haimoff, Executive Managing Director, Spectrum Commercial Real Estate The COVID-19 pandemic slowed or halted markets across the world. But how did Los Angeles fare? Well, the retail market slowed in 2020 as a result of the pandemic, but, fortunately, it is slowly picking up with reopenings and the adoption of the COVID-19 vaccine. Looking back, recent transactions in the retail space have predominantly included food-related deals. With established fast food businesses like In-n-Out, Starbucks, Popeye’s Chicken, Chick-Fil-A and more showing more transactions, there is definitely a pattern of increased demand for services that support activities necessitated by isolation. However, there have also been deals that included gyms/fitness users, family entertainment, tutoring centers and a few other ancillary retail uses. It looks as if the reopenings are starting to bring in a renewed demand for more social activities, which, blended with the rise of fast food establishments, is a good sign the market is picking up. Looking at current retail development activities, the local market has been mostly quiet in terms of retail-only centers. This makes sense, as retail stores suffered during the shutdown, with many existing retailers turning to curbside pick-up services to stay afloat. Many developers simply aren’t …
Market Reports
By Matt Harper, Senior Vice President of Retail, NAI Horizon Arizona relies heavily on a robust tourism industry. When COVID-19 hit, it was a massive blow to the hospitality and retail sectors. Coming out of the pandemic, however, the Metro Phoenix retail sector has shown great resiliency, especially mom and pops. Phoenix ended the fourth quarter of 2020 with a positive net absorption of 124,330 square feet of retail space. With negative net absorption in the second and third quarters of 2020 – the devastating months of the pandemic – Phoenix ended the year at negative 373,715 square feet. This was compared to an overall positive net absorption of more than 1.1 million square feet in 2019. Phoenix vacancy rose slightly in the second quarter of 2021 from the previous quarter, coming in at 7.7 percent and 7.5 percent, respectively. Net absorption for the second quarter was a negative 63,558 square feet, down from a strong first-quarter 2021 of 466,714 square feet. The average triple-net rental rate rose slightly to $15.81 per square foot. COVID-19 travel restrictions and stay-at-home orders attributed to the paltry second- and third-quarter 2020 numbers. Then those orders were lifted by Gov. Ducey, and the sun came …
As COVID-19 took hold in early 2020, the Orlando retail market only saw a modest dip in fundamentals where metro-wide rental rates fell by 5 percent and occupancy dropped 100 basis points during the second and third quarters. Beginning in the fourth quarter of 2020, rental and occupancy rates began an extraordinarily strong comeback, climbing 12 percent and 140 basis points, respectively, from the COVID-19 lows. According to data from CoStar Group, the metro’s average rental rate of $15.84 per square foot in the second quarter is more than 7 percent higher than the pre-pandemic peak. And occupancy rates are 40 basis point higher than the pre-COVID-19 peak, currently standing at 96.4 percent. With escalating land prices and shortages in raw materials and labor, we anticipate overall construction costs will continue to increase, stalling deliveries and further advancing rental and occupancy rates. Last year, some retail owners (sellers) and investors (buyers) focused on asset management within their portfolios and reevaluated the perceived investment risk due to the pandemic, which caused a sharp dropoff in 2020 investment activity, despite an abundance of capital available to invest. After a couple quarters of fundamentals bottoming out, owners and investors had confidence in their …
By Richard Gorodesky, SIOR, senior managing director, Colliers International; and Adam Gorodesky, associate, Colliers International Commercial real estate is historically a cyclical business. There is a fairly predictable pattern of oversupply, recession, recovery and finally expansion before starting all over again. While the cycle isn’t always this cleanly defined, it generally follows this pattern, and has done so for decades. While this formula can be very useful for understanding the cycles and what occurs during them, it lacks one key ingredient: timing. There’s no way to accurately predict when one stage is ending or how long each phase will last. On a basic level, like in all markets, the commercial real estate market cycle responds to the balance, imbalance and rebalancing of supply and demand. The factors that influence the market and determine the length of each cycle are and will continue to be moving targets. Demand Overview While e-commerce represents about 18 percent of retail sales today, and it is widely believed in commercial real estate circles that that number could grow to 30 percent by 2025. Amazon, online retailers and other e-commerce companies have not only fueled demand for last-mile distribution facilities, which are necessary to reach as …
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Commercial real estate professionals indicate conditions in the industry have returned to approximately where they were before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to The National Association of Industrial and Office Parks (NAIOP) Fall 2021 Commercial Real Estate Sentiment Index. The index for September 2021 came in at 56 out of 100, up slightly from 54 in April 2021 and identical to March 2019, a year before the pandemic began. At the pandemic’s worst point — March through September 2020 — the index sank to 45. The NAIOP Sentiment Index was created to predict general conditions in the commercial real estate industry over the following 12 months by asking industry professionals to predict conditions for their own projects and markets. The Fall 2021 report surveyed a total of 357 respondents from 263 distinct companies from Sept. 7 to 14. The index asks respondents questions about jobs, space markets, construction costs, capital markets and other conditions for real estate development. A sentiment index below 50 means many believe there will be unfavorable commercial real estate conditions over the next 12 months; 50 means little to no change in commercial real estate conditions are expected; and greater than …
By Peter Loehrer, Colliers MSP Minneapolis has secured its position as the darling market of the Midwest industrial investment community. Minneapolis was the quintessential Midwest city: cautious real estate development, durable rents with stately growth and moderate but unwavering absorption growth year to year. This, however, is no longer the case. A combination of repeated institutional capital injections, a highly constrained land market and exponential growth in tenants looking for new space has transformed Minneapolis into an institutional and foreign capital target market. Institutional capital By far the most transformational event in recent history for the Minneapolis industrial market was Link Industrial’s entrance into the market. Beginning in 2018 with the Gramercy acquisition, and continuing in 2019 with the Space Center acquisition — both of which have bits and pieces of the national portfolio located throughout Minneapolis — Link made its first real foray into Minneapolis in May of 2019 with the acquisition of the 2.2 million-square-foot Industrial Equities portfolio. Link quickly followed this up with pieces of the GLP and Colony Capital acquisitions, as well as the largest real estate purchase in Minneapolis history, the 7.2 million-square-foot CSM Corp. industrial portfolio, and most recently the 2.5 million-square-foot Prologis portfolio. …
By Steve Solomon, Senior Executive Vice President, and Kristen Bowman, First Vice President, Colliers International Greater Los Angeles leasing activity surged, reaching nearly 3 million square feet in the second quarter. Although higher than the past few quarters, it was significantly lower than the 2019 pre-pandemic quarterly average of 4.6 million square feet. Much of the activity occurred in West Los Angeles, where large expansions and renewals were signed by tech, media and entertainment tenants. While leasing did ramp up, overall vacancy continued to rise, eventually reaching a historic high of 19.4 percent. This rate, which includes direct and sublease space, is 160 basis points higher than the previous peak in 2013 when it hit 17.8 percent. Nearly 25 percent of office space, whether vacant or currently occupied, is available for lease. There is currently 4.9 million square feet of speculative new office construction underway delivering by 2023 in Greater Los Angeles. These major developments, which do not include renovations, are currently 30.7 percent pre-leased. Over half of this new construction is in West Los Angeles, which has a higher pre-leased rate of 36.6 percent. The rate is highest in Central Los Angeles, where Netflix has snatched up 44.6 percent …
By Drew Ricciardi, Research Manager, ABI Multifamily Research Manager Following a chaotic year that left investors on the sidelines, the Phoenix market proved resilient. In fact, it ended up witnessing one of the most significant rebounds nationally. The Phoenix multifamily market exploded with a record start for 2021 and is now considered one of the top multifamily markets in the country. Phoenix continues to see robust population increases due to job growth, quality of life, industry diversity and affordability. According to a Redfin study, the Phoenix metro market had the highest population net inflow in 2020 of all U.S. metros. Phoenix benefited from the work-from-home phenomenon due to COVID-19, which resulted in high-paid workers fleeing high-priced, high-density markets for more affordable markets offering more spacious living options. Not only are people migrating to Phoenix, but the area is becoming a prime spot for company headquarters and advanced facilities. The metro area’s educated workforce, strong talent pool, business-friendly tax environment, and affordability are all key factors. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. plans to invest around $35 billion in new Phoenix facilities. This is the most substantial direct foreign investment in Arizona to date. The investment will have significant ripple effects on the …
Contrary to what is often portrayed in the national media, the Orlando office market is not a monolith. It instead comprises multiple submarkets, many of which are recovering quite differently. For example, according to data from CoStar Group, Winter Park had a 4.7 percent availability rate (that’s direct and sublease space combined). The Downtown Orlando market, on the other hand, had a rate of 16.9 percent. The total Orlando MSA office availability rate was 11.5 percent, which compares to the national rate of 16 percent. All of these numbers just prove that the recovery from the pandemic is uneven, even in areas in close proximity. It’s easy to get lost in analysis, but the basic answer is that the office market in Orlando, just like in the entire country, will recover in time. Not all areas will be on the same timeline, and the office market will never look entirely the same. Between working from home and companies deciding to relocate their offices or headquarters entirely, there will be some short-term winners and losers. Texas, for instance, is having a relative boom in new tenants. Los Angeles, and indeed California in general, on the other hand, is not. Many companies …
By Taylor Williams Relative to a year ago, life is much better right now for many retailers and restaurants in Philadelphia’s Center City district, but the recent surge of transmission of the Delta variant is keeping a key ingredient of the demand recipe at bay: office users. According to CBRE’s second-quarter report on the Philadelphia office market, the most current data available at the time of this writing, the marketwide vacancy rate was 18.9 percent at the end of that period. Specifically with regard to the downtown area, the largest office submarket by far in terms of inventory, vacancy stood at 14.7 percent at the end of the second quarter. Office metrics aside, as Philadelphia grappled with the novelty of COVID-19 in 2020, its merchants and food purveyors adapted, adjusting inventory levels, rolling out improvised outdoor seating areas and expanding takeout and curbside pick-up options. The colder months saw the introduction of igloos — enclosed, heated nooks for private dining — as well as larger, city-led efforts to clear major retail corridors for street-side experiences, known locally as “streateries.” The innovations saved many-a-retailer and restaurant and are likely here to continue through 2021 and beyond. Yet within the city’s most …