In the words of Marilyn Monroe, “Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.” The retail market forges ahead in its quest to essentially reinvent itself in response to the ever-increasing growth in online sales. This revitalization is characterized by decreasing the footprint of their brick and mortar stores and expanding the size of their e-commerce fulfillment centers. Fortunately, the biggest beneficiary of this growing trend is the industrial market. There’s been a lot of talk about retailers suffering from the boom in internet sales. Quite frankly, do you really believe a retailer cares if they sell their product in a storefront or through the internet and their e-commerce delivery system? I contend they do not care as long as it is their product being sold. The retailers that do not embrace internet sales, in conjunction with their in-store sales, will be going the way of companies like Toys “R” Us — losing sales and eventually closing down because they are not able to compete in today’s online world. The competition between e-commerce delivery systems has heated up even further due to “just in time” or last-mile delivery. Customer expectation on some items is shifting from two-day …
As we enter the last quarter of 2019, well into the longest economic expansion in history, the Atlanta retail real estate market is healthy and active, with multi-year retail rent and occupancy growth. The city’s retail investment sales volume totaled $2.2 billion in 2018, making it the eighth most active retail investment market in the country. Not a gateway market, yet In my career, Atlanta has always been a “non-institutional” market, and has stayed largely off the radar of deep pools of institutional capital aimed at New York, Boston, San Francisco and other gateway cities with deeper economies, higher rents, lower cap rates and higher values. Nevertheless Atlanta’s population, GDP and growth make it the undisputed capital of the Southeast by a country mile. The metro’s shopping centers have benefitted from this paradox: it has the biggest economy in the South and is among the top metros in the nation for employment and population growth. However, its average rents are lower and its average retail cap rates are higher than almost every one of its peers in the Southeast and the United States at large. Despite the overblown narrative of the retail apocalypse and despite how or when the current …
Georgia’s secondary and tertiary multifamily markets continue to demonstrate growing attraction as capital flows from investors leaving the Atlanta metro area in search of higher yield transactions. The greater Georgia market, which spans the state excluding the 29-county Atlanta metro area, has become a destination for investment due to growing capital inflows to the Southeast and cap rate compression in metro Atlanta. Multifamily transaction volume in the Southeast totaled $11.8 billion in second-quarter 2019, up 25 percent year-over-year, allowing more capital to enter Georgia’s secondary and tertiary markets. The trickle-down effect of investment into these markets, boosted by strong job growth and increasing renter households, works to promote a strong renter marketplace with increasing returns in the region. Georgia markets demonstrated tightening fundamentals and noticeable rent gains in recent years, particularly south of Atlanta, due to supply-side pressure and limited new deliveries. According to CoStar Group, metro Atlanta delivered nearly 11,000 units, up 15 percent year-over-year through the second quarter, while Georgia’s secondary and tertiary markets delivered roughly 2,200 in total, down 40 percent. Greater Georgia’s lack of supply has generated pent-up demand in multifamily, resulting in residents who are willing to pay more for higher value assets while landlords …
Home of the Louisville Slugger and Muhammad Ali, sports is engrained in the identity of Louisville. Derby City continues to make a big push to bring in an NBA team, but a different professional team is already in town. Louisville City FC, also known as LouCity, is Louisville’s professional soccer team. The club is not only a two-time champion of the USL, the team is now in the process of building a new $65 million stadium with seating for more than 13,000 spectators. Dubbed Lynn Family Stadium, the new arena will be the centerpiece of a 40-acre, $200 million mixed-use development in Louisville’s Butchertown neighborhood. Construction of the stadium is on schedule and should open for the 2020 season. The stadium will have amazing views, including the skyline of downtown Louisville and the waterfront area overlooking the Ohio River. The project should spur other retail, housing and offices to be constructed to revitalize Butchertown. Additional sports/entertainment is moving into Louisville’s malls as anchors. The vacant Sears location at Oxmoor Mall in the St. Matthews area will have Topgolf as a new anchor tenant. Topgolf has been working to come to Louisville for 18 months and was recently granted the approvals …
Louisville continues high occupancy levels throughout the metropolitan area in all apartment types as the market continues to enjoy record-level rent growth and new development. This is enhanced by low unemployment and rising wages throughout the Louisville metropolitan area. The diverse local economy from worldwide distribution at UPS and high-tech manufacturing at Ford Motor Co. and General Electric Appliance Park, as well as innovation in the medical industry, continue to provide high-paying jobs and a highly desirable employment base that can drive occupancy and rents for apartment owners in the Louisville metropolitan area. Integra Realty Resources reports an overall occupancy level of 96 percent for the Louisville metropolitan area, which has seen mid- to high-single-digit rent growth on an annual basis over the last three years. This high occupancy level and rental growth rate have attracted a number of new developments around the metropolitan marketplace. In 2018, there were 2,173 units completed and an additional 898 have been delivered in 2019 as of this writing. Most of the larger scale developments have been completed by regional developers such as Nashville-based Bristol Development and Indianapolis-based Cityscape Residential. Local development companies, such as Denton Floyd, LDG Development, Hagan Development and NTS Development, …
In 2018, Louisville saw a record year with more than 10 million square feet of net absorption in its industrial sector. This is a huge absorption number for any of the Midwest markets and represents more than three times Louisville’s previous record. Louisville was second only behind Chicago out of the Midwest markets tracked by CBRE. The absorption follows a record year for speculative construction as well, as close to 4 million square feet was delivered in 2018. User demand came from all sectors, including automotive, e-commerce, third-party logistics firms (3PLs), manufacturing and medical. Automotive and manufacturing were particularly strong performers. The more notable automotive and manufacturing transactions in 2018 were three Ford Motor Co. leases totaling more than 1 million square feet, as well as New Flyer’s 315,000-square-foot, $30 million transit bus and motorcoach parts fabrication facility in Bullitt County. Additionally, Denso leased 311,000 square feet in Southern Indiana and KCC opened another 224,000-square-foot plant to expand production capacity of its HVAC equipment line. Distribution remains strong in Louisville due to its central location and available workforce. According to a recent report from CBRE’s Labor Analytics Group, Louisville has the highest distribution labor score among the Midwest markets. As …
In 1864, General William T. Sherman burned Atlanta to the ground, including the area around the Zero Mile Post marking the terminus of the Western & Atlantic Railroad. Now, 155 years later, South Downtown is on fire again but this time, it is as one of the hottest development submarkets in the Southeast. With the still-active downtown rail yards at its center, more than $10 billion in new development is either completed, under construction or in the planning stages. This “Downtown Ring of Fire” stretches from Centennial Olympic Park and Mercedes-Benz Stadium to Castleberry Hill and over to Underground Atlanta. The project SSG Realty Partners recently brought to market, Artisan Yards, is a 9.9-acre site at the intersection of Ted Turner Drive (historic Spring Street) and Whitehall Street. It is currently the headquarters of Gourmet Foods International, which has outgrown the property and is relocating to a new facility. The primary catalyst for this significant new development momentum is the $1.6 billion Mercedes-Benz Stadium, home of the Atlanta Falcons and the 2018 MLS Cup champions Atlanta United. The $192 million renovation of State Farm Arena and the $25 million expansion of Centennial Olympic Park were also critical in creating the …
Miami continues to be a top-ranked commercial real estate market in the Southeast United States. As the economy gears up to enter its longest expansion period in U.S. history, Miami has shown more resiliency than other South Florida markets, recording steady gains in absorption, robust leasing activity and modest rent growth. Economic fundamentals remain strong as job growth continues to fuel Miami’s office market with the unemployment rate trending down to 3.2 percent. Miami’s unemployment rate reached the lowest point in its history, falling to 3 percent in April 2019. The fundamentals in economic growth continue to support corporate expansion in nearly every industry as well as new-to-market growth from other U.S. markets and globally. While in the past, most of Miami’s growth came from Latin America, 60 percent of new-to-market growth now comes from Europe, with Spain being a frontrunner. High demand amid deliveries Miami-Dade County’s overall office vacancy rate rose slightly by 1 percent in the past 12 months, during which time 937,919 square feet of new office space was delivered to the market. More than 500,000 square feet was absorbed during that time. Because of the strong absorption, the vacancy rate was impacted only slightly, bringing it …
The surge in demand for Birmingham’s industrial real estate over the last few years has resulted in the highest occupancy rates in over 20 years. Alabama’s level of business friendliness has created a strong economy and high level of job growth since the end of the Great Recession. Manufacturing is a key driver of job growth. Overall vacancy rates in Birmingham’s multi-tenant industrial market have fallen to around 7 percent, which is an all-time low. Average rental rates have crept up to approximately $4.25 per square foot, which is historically high for Birmingham but still significantly lower than rents in larger markets around the Southeast. In spite of the robust activity, there are no active plans for any sort of speculative multi-tenant developments in the market. The last project was the 90,000-square-foot Oxmoor Logistics Center located in the Oxmoor Valley submarket, which was completed in the fourth quarter of 2018. It is currently 100 percent occupied. However, there are over 2 million square feet of individual projects that will be completed before the end of 2019. One is a $1.3 billion expansion at the Mercedes-Benz Tuscaloosa plant, which includes a new body shop, enhancements to the SUV assembly shop and …
With more than 30 cranes in Nashville’s skies, it’s safe to say the Music City commercial real estate market is humming along. In fact, Davidson County approved $4.2 billion of commercial and residential construction permits in the 2018-2019 fiscal year, according to the Nashville Business Journal. Over the last three fiscal years, the county approved $11.4 billion in permits. While that’s an outstanding level of capital investment in a county with under 900,000 residents, it should be noted that Nashville’s MSA comprises 1.9 million residents encompassing 13 counties — all of which are experiencing record levels of construction permits. New companies coming to the city are driving the office market and construction demand, with several large announcements in the last year including Amazon, AllianceBernstein and Mitsubishi, and the city is continues to rapidly attract companies in the financial services, tech and healthcare industries. With a limited number of buildings available for adaptive reuse, most development taking place in the market is new construction. In fact, more than 460,000 square feet of Class A space was delivered in the third quarter of 2019. The majority of that figure was in Midtown and the Cool Springs/Franklin submarkets, with Aetna and Ramsey Solution’s …