2023 NAIOP AWARDS

The NAIOP Commercial Real Estate Development Association Northeast Florida Chapter presented its 2022 Awards Gala on March 23 at the Prime F. Osborn III Convention Center Grand Lobby.

NAIOP of Northeast Florida comprises local business professionals and is connected to more than 20,000 members across the country through the commercial real estate industry. Each year, local NAIOP Board leaders dedicate time and effort to meet with local, state, and national officials to address the concerns of our local members with a focus on upcoming legislative policies that may have lasting impacts on the local community as well as future real estate development.

NAOIP members have been addressing the unnecessary delays of Certificate of Use issuance with our local leaders as this has been impacting the ability of owners and tenants to open their operations in a timely fashion.

In addition, NAIOP leaders are working with the city of Jacksonville to improve the permitting process as there have significant delays for permit issuance since the COVID-19 pandemic.

In Tallahassee, NAIOP representatives have been working with our state representatives during the legislative session these past several months to address impactful bills being presented including business rent tax, bidirectional antenna and EV charging installation requirements.

Business rent tax is unique to Florida and is burdensome for property owners to compete for prospective tenants, relative to other states. Due to the increased revenue the state has received from the reemployment tax, NAIOP is hopeful to advance discussion of lowering or fully eliminating it. Additionally, there are several bills presented regarding bidirectional antennas, for two-way radio enhancement, and EV charging station requirements. These bills could add significant costs to developers and further impair COU issuance. NAIOP and its representatives have been closely monitoring and providing examples of delayed active projects negatively impacted by these standards and costs.

In our nation’s capital, NAIOP representatives prepared our local team, in addition to teams across the country, with compiled data and talking points to address our respective Congressional leaders. The primary topics included: Adaptive reuse, consistency of the Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) regulatory policy and continuation of favorable tax policy towards investment properties.

Adaptive reuse is the repurposing of underutilized structures, primarily offices vacated from the fallout effects of COVID-19, to address the shortage of housing affordability. NAIOP has proposed an idea to accomplish this win-win solution by encouraging our lawmakers to develop federal incentive conversion programs to encourage owners and developers toward this cause.

Changes in the Environmental Protection Agency, Army Corps of Engineers and recent opinions by the U.S. Supreme Court have resulted in confusion and delay of WOTUS regarding the definition and jurisdiction of protected wetlands under the Clean Water Act. NAIOP provided comments to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to standardize and streamline current processes to keep consistency across the nation.

Lastly, NAIOP continues to advocate for federal tax policy to align with incentivized future investment opportunities. By supporting a lower tax rate on capital gain income, historic tax credits, as well as like-kind exchanges under Section 1031, NAIOP remains committed to keeping current incentive programs in place for our CRE partners.

Please direct any future concerns or desire to become involved, to the NAIOP VP of Public Affairs Chris Wilson (chris.wilson@renasant.com) and Laura Gonzales (Laura.Gonzales@matthews.com).