Industrial Brokers across the Southeast feel much better than they did this time last year, and the statistics are showing why.
We surveyed 10 of Colliers International’s Southeast Offices about the state of the industrial market. Everyone has shown decreasing vacancy, positive absorption and an increase in activity.
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The Florida Department of Revenue has decided to suspend its consideration of a sales tax on tenant improvements to commercial property.
For now, at least.
“We are not proceeding with the rule at this time,” DOR spokeswoman Renee Watters said Tuesday.
Could the proposal return in the future?
“That’s what ‘at this time’ generally means,” Watters said.
Commercial real estate brokers and development industry leaders opposed the tax, suggesting it had the potential to have a significant negative impact on the state’s economic comeback.
The Florida Gulfcoast Association of Realtors hosted a meeting of industry leaders and DOR officials in Tampa earlier this month.
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A debt-restructuring deal involving two distressed Michigan office buildings has raised concerns among analysts and prompted a debate in the commercial mortgage-backed securities industry about the role of special servicers.
Special servicers are responsible for managing commercial-mortgage securities when they run into trouble and increasingly have been involved in foreclosing on properties or working out troubled deals with landlords. They are largely unregulated but are closely watched by holders of the bonds that they manage.
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Florida’s unemployment rate fell sharply to 10.3 percent in October, reaching the lowest level in 28 months, state officials reported Friday.
Over the month, Florida gained a net 9,500 jobs, pushing the state up 106,900 jobs since January and 93,900 jobs compared to a year ago.
The jobless rate, down from 10.6 percent in September, represents about 955,000 unemployed Floridians out of a labor force of 9.2 million.
Since peaking at 12 percent last December, Florida’s jobless rate has slowly and steadily improved. However, it still remains far higher than the national rate of 9 percent and nowhere near what would be considered a more healthy rate of 6 percent or below.
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Central Florida has seen a small uptick in payroll employment, but not in the high-paying jobs the region wants.
The latest figures released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Latest from The Business Journals Texas is only exception to gloomy retail pictureSacramento loses 9,300 manufacturing jobs in four yearsAlbany area lost 2,300 manufacturing jobs to recession Follow this company show Central Florida gained 11,900 new jobs, or a 1.2 percent increase, in September. And that’s despite an unemployment rate in Central Florida that still topped 10 percent in September.
Most of the job growth was in the leisure and hospitality industry, which had a 6.3 percent uptick in employment since September 2010. Those are traditionally lower-wage jobs.
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Did Warren Buffett buy Burlington Northern railroad just in time for freight from Asia to find a different route to Kansas?
Right now, about 70% of U.S. imports from Asia arrive by ship on the West Coast, and much of that then gets transferred to rail lines like Burlington Northern’s for transit to the rest of the country.
But in 2014, Panama will rock the world of logistics. That’s when it will open a fat new lane of its canal for big ships that can carry three times as much as vessels sailing the current channel. If larger vessels make …
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Carlyle Group, the large private-equity firm that is preparing for a public share listing, has had to cut fees and offer other unusual incentives to lure investors to a new $2.3 billion real-estate fund.
The fund, which is about to close, is one of the largest since the property bubble burst in 2008. But Carlyle’s aggressive sales tactics reflect the reluctance of big pension funds to put new money into higher-return, higher-risk real-estate funds after suffering sharp losses during the financial crisis.
Carlyle has nearly doubled its assets under management over the past three years to more than $153 billion, paving the way for the firm’s high-profile initial public offering expected early next year. But the fee cut suggests Carlyle may reap less than some expect from some of the money it manages.
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As Central Florida gears up to get commuter rail operating by 2014, the firm running freight trains on those tracks also has big plans in the works — $198 million worth of enhancements to its S-line.
That line runs down the center of the state nearly parallel to and west of the $1.3 billion SunRail route from DeLand to Poinciana.
Jacksonville-based CSX Corp. (NYSE: CSX) expects to move up to eight of its existing freight cars per day from the portion of its A-line which will become the SunRail track, to the S-line when SunRail begins operating.
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Orlando last week lost Nephron Pharmaceuticals Corp.’s planned new $313 million manufacturing plant and its anticipated 707 high-wage jobs to South Carolina.
Now, local economic development officials are left to figure out why the Orlando-based generic respiratory drug maker decided to build the facility elsewhere.
Orlando-based Nephron operates a 250,000-square-foot manufacturing, distribution and packaging complex in Orlando, employing more than 450 people in Florida, and has distribution centers in Kentucky and Arizona. The firm does not plan to move its Orlando operation.
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As Central Florida gears up to get commuter rail operating by 2014, the firm running freight trains on those tracks also has big plans in the works — $198 million worth of enhancements to its S-line.
That line runs down the center of the state nearly parallel to and west of the $1.3 billion SunRail route from DeLand to Poinciana.
To view entire article Click Here.
Florida still can’t catch Texas in the hiring race.
Gov. Rick Perry’s presidential run continues to bring a new wrinkle to the monthly state job reports, which document how many jobs each state either created or lost. The Texas governor rightly claims his state created more than its fair share of jobs in the last few years: about one out of every three new jobs added since the recession ended in June 2009 came from Texas.
But other states have caught up since then. This year, about 13 percent of the new jobs came from the Lone Star State, and in September, Florida added more jobs than Texas did — 23,300 versus 15,400.
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Four months ago, Ky Nguyen was paying about $6,000 a month in rent for his small, 1,600 square-foot dental office, part of a mostly vacant strip mall in Manteca, Calif.
In July, he bought the entire 25,000 square-foot mall for $1.9 million, one-fifth of what the prior owner paid, purchasing it from a loan servicer that had foreclosed on the property. Now, with an affordable mortgage and some rental revenue, his debt service comes to about $2,000 a month less than he used to pay in rent for his office.
“We jumped on the opportunity,” said Mr. Nguyen, a 36-year-old …
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