Market voices: Facing the challenges
Scott Helms
Principal Helms Development
The last three large sites over 50 acres that I’ve developed were a filled lake, a trailer park and a women’s prison. You don’t find large industrial sites sitting out in the market. It doesn’t happen. It has to be a site with a different zoning and with the ability to entitle. There are several large projects in the entitlement process, a Sunrise vacant site for 1 million square feet for Amazon and a Pompano site that was formerly part of a harness track with an unnamed tenant. Anything of substantial size has to be repurposed. Due to the scarcity of the industrial sites, land prices continue to increase.
The challenges for retail are national and international. The ability to invest in that space is driven by the individual market. South Florida is really unique in the fact that even in the worst of times, South Florida continues to grow, it just slows the pace as opposed to moving in the opposite direction. Part of the challenge for that is that land prices make it a very expensive place to do business. As you look at some of the regional mall properties that are being repositioned, the owners of those properties are institutional or have gone back into receivership. You have to go in and analyze each one of those.
Nicole Shiman
Senior Vice President of Investment EDENS
President & Principal Salzman Real Estate Advisors
COVID has been transformational, particularly within the commercial retail sector. EDENS, in Florida specifically, fared quite well despite the type of challenges that COVID presented. I think it’s because of the kind of product we own, our execution team and the kind of places we have in the market. We are predominantly neighborhood-grocery anchored. Further, we own trophy, transformative real estate, and in Florida we have a strong footprint. There’s no doubt that there have been significant headwinds, but we have tackled these challenges and, overall, we have done relatively well.
One of the big changes we’re seeing is retailers and cities looking to accommodate electric vehicles and charging stations at shopping centers. We already have anchor tenants requiring charging stations at the properties. I think that’ll be a lot more prevalent in the future, giving people who are coming to shop the opportunity to charge their car at the same time. I also think we’re also going to see a big push for solar energy. As property owners, we obviously have large parking fields, but we also have expansive roofs that lend themselves to the placement of solar panels.
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Terry Salzman
| Invest: Greater Fort Lauderdale 2021 | REAL ESTATE
Andrew Zidar Vice President of Development & Acquisitions RK Centers
