®
oundtable:
Commercial real estate The future of the office remains a hotly debated topic. Here, market leaders provide their view along with other factors that are impacting the sector.
David Bradley
Regional Manager – Tampa Marcus & Millichap
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Mike Griffin
Senior Vice President & Market Leader Savills – Tampa
How strong was the commercial real estate market in Tampa before the pandemic? Whenever we look at the health of a market and its longterm prospects, it really boils down to one metric, and that’s job growth. Whenever jobs are being created, it has a positive effect across all the product types that we service. We work with all the main commercial products: multifamily, office, industrial, retail, and some more niche areas like self-storage, hotel and senior housing. If you look at those markets that are healthy and growing, it all ties back to whether or not companies are choosing to invest and put people to work in that local marketplace. Or, is there a natural outflow of population and stagnant job growth? One of the most appealing things about Tampa is the plain and simple fact that it offers a lot of opportunities for a variety of businesses.
How did the pandemic accelerate change? Savills globally does virtually everything. It’s a Top 6 firm. Structurally, we are financially sound and have no meaningful debt compared to our competitors. It gives us significant opportunity to go after talent, whether it be businesses or individuals. From our position, our focus is primarily on the office and industrial sides. Since offices and commerce shut down in March, rolling back to the offices has been highly gradual. We also have certainly seen a change in how people are working and going back to work. Statistically, C-suite executives and the lion’s share of business leaders are anticipating that roughly 30% of their workforce is not coming back to the office. The implication for physical workplaces is going from dense, efficient layouts toward a space planning and design of office spaces that takes into account more distancing.
What might office space look like going forward? I think that office assets are primed for the reimagining of what to do with the space. Throughout this disruption and these changes, creative people, smart people are going to put their heads together and find new ways to utilize the buildings we have. I think we will see office space itself be reconfigured in a way to make it more pleasing and inviting. The overall floor plate and space that people will occupy will probably see some downsizing. That trend could continue for the immediate future. Long term, I think that there will be a reshuffling in terms of how to organize the space but that can ultimately result in higher net dollars per square foot and rent, with commercial landlords being able to come out in a similar or better position than where they are now.
How would you assess Florida’s industrial market? It’s just incredible, transformative, when you look at even the retail space getting more involved in the supply chain aspect of how they’re using their vacant big boxes for supply chain work. COVID-19 brought about a perfect storm in a good way in the sense that for the past 20-plus years there was a strong emphasis on investing heavily in the I-4 Corridor. We had all the pieces in place to support this, whether it was truck, rail or air cargo. The one thing that worked even better was our availability and cost of land. That is all changing. Deals are getting done, land is trading hands and that is creating a value proposition. We are similar to other Southeastern markets that have a port facility. We cannot build the logistics and distribution facilities fast enough.
| Invest: Tampa Bay 2021 | REAL ESTATE
