What area is your expertise?
• Maitland Center Office Market
What trends do you see presently in office development in your area?
• No speculative development at this time.
Who are the active office developers in your area?
• Battaglia Fruit Company and Liberty Property Trust
Please name one or two significant office developments in your area. What impact will these projects have on the market?
• None immediately planned.
Where is the majority of development taking place? Why is this area doing well?
• The majority of development taking place is in Southwest Orlando. The driving factors behind this are the lack of Class A buildings in the area as well as the expansion of the timeshare and tourism industries.
What area do you expect to be the next big development market? Why?
• Lake Mary. This is the only market besides Southwest Orlando that has expansion capabilities without venturing past the metropolitan Orlando area.
What areas are doing well in terms of office leasing? Which areas are struggling with office leasing?
• Orlando as a whole is a healthy office market. The obvious weaknesses are in the sectors that deal directly and indirectly in the residential real estate market (i.e. developers, mortgage, title, planners, etc.)
Please give a measure of office vacancy rates. Please give a measure of available sublease space.
• Vacancy overall in Orlando is around 11 to 13 percent inclusive of sublease space, and will most likely rise a little bit over the next several months due to a slightly soft market as well as new product coming on line.
Is there any type of office tenant absorbing a majority of space? What industries do you expect to expand in the next year to absorb a great deal of office space? What areas will be affected?
• There are two industries that continue to show growth: the medical R&D industry, as well as defense and simulation related industry. This is good for the Central Florida Research Park as well as Lake Mary and Maitland Center office markets.
— Submitted by Todd Davis, vice president with the Orlando, Florida office of Carter.