Office-building construction is in the midst of a severe drought. This means higher rents may be on the horizon in some cities, if history is any guide.

In the U.S. last year, developers broke ground on office buildings with a total of just 56 million square feet of space, the lowest level tracked by McGraw-Hill Construction since at least 1960.

Even during the early 1990s, in the aftermath of a surge of construction a decade earlier that left cities around the country dotted with empty office buildings, the U.S. never dropped below 80 million square feet of new office-building construction a year, according to McGraw-Hill. And analysts don’t expect construction to pick up anytime soon.

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TALLAHASSEE An influential state House committee unveiled plans Wednesday for more than $125 million a year worth of new business-tax breaks, ranging from broad cuts sought by Republican Gov. Rick Scott to narrower ones for everyone from manufacturers to private-airplane owners and oil-drilling concerns.

The assortment of breaks easily cleared the Republican-controlled House Finance and Tax Committee with only minimal opposition from some Democratic lawmakers and lobbyists for cities and counties.

The centerpiece is a multipronged “economic development” package (PCB 12-07) that includes two of Scott’s top legislative priorities this spring.

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The dollar volume of commercial real estate sales vaulted back to longterm historical levels in 2011. CoStar Group has confirmed $291.6 billion in CRE sales in 2011, a 32% increase over the sales volume in 2010.

Last year’s volume bested the 12-year average volume of $254.2 billion. However, the 2011 dollar volume is still overshadowed by credit-bubble level of $560.5 billion in 2007.

Sales of office property led all other types in dollar volume totaling almost $74 billion. That volume was 39% higher than 2010, but it was only one-third the volume of office sales in 2007

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Though Florida was hard hit by the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, and unemployment in the state sits 1.5 percent above the national average at 10.1 percent, in the first quarter of 2012, employers in two of Florida’s metropolitan areas are planning to increase their workforces at a rate that outpaces every other metro area in the country, according to employment services firm Manpower Group’s latest employment outlook survey, released earlier this month. In Cape Coral-Fort Myers, and in Lakeland-Winter Haven, a net 17 percent of employers plan to add employees in the first quarter of next year. Two other Florida metro areas, Bradenton-Sarasota-Venice and Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, make it into Manpower’s top 15, both with a 12 percent net hiring outlook

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The Sunshine State’s economy should further rebound in 2012, with South Florida outperforming what turned out to be a disappointing 2011, several indicators show.

“We see the momentum,” said Tony Villamil, principal economic advisor to the Washington Economics Group and dean of the St. Thomas University School of Business.

“Incomes and population growth will be up [in 2012] and unemployment is slowing declining,” added Sean Snaith, director of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Economic Competitiveness.”

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MIAMI —Liberty Property Trust (NYSE: LRY) has plans to develop the 1.6 million-square-foot Miami International Tradeport, a $135 million industrial park located on Florida’s Turnpike, south of Okeechobee Road in Miami. Coconut Creek, Fla.-based Butters Construction & Development has been selected to oversee construction of the park.

“We feel there is a tremendous opportunity for well-designed and located industrial product in Miami-Dade County, and we are excited to begin development and to grow our footprint in South Florida,” said Andy Petry, vice president and city manager for Malvern, Pa.-based Liberty.

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Of the more than 65.5 million square feet of properties managed by the companies on this week’s OBJ largest property management companies, there are more than 19.5 million square feet of industrial, 9.7 million of residential and 754 properties.

To see the entire list of the Top 25 largest property management companies in Central Florida, see our Dec. 2 print edition.

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida real estate experts and investors were pessimistic for a second consecutive quarter, despite encouraging signs in the rise of occupancy rates and prices in the rental apartment market, a new University of Florida survey finds.

The Survey of Emerging Market Conditions, conducted quarterly by the Kelley A. Bergstrom Center for Real Estate Studies at UF’s Warrington College of Business Administration, indicates the main reason for the third-quarter malaise was the falling market for single-family houses, condominiums and most types of land.

Uncertainty over unsettling economic news at the international, national and state levels provides the backdrop for the declining perspective, said Timothy S. Becker, director of the Bergstrom Center. The Commercial Real Estate Sentiment Index declined in the third quarter marking the second consecutive decline of the year.

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida real estate experts and investors were pessimistic for a second consecutive quarter, despite encouraging signs in the rise of occupancy rates and prices in the rental apartment market, a new University of Florida survey finds.

The Survey of Emerging Market Conditions, conducted quarterly by the Kelley A. Bergstrom Center for Real Estate Studies at UF’s Warrington College of Business Administration, indicates the main reason for the third-quarter malaise was the falling market for single-family houses, condominiums and most types of land.

Uncertainty over unsettling economic news at the international, national and state levels provides the backdrop for the declining perspective, said Timothy S. Becker, director of the Bergstrom Center. The Commercial Real Estate Sentiment Index declined in the third quarter marking the second consecutive decline of the year.

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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. CSX Corp.Latest from The Business JournalsJaxport, CSX ask feds for M for intermodal facilityWhat do you love about our city?CSX plans to spend 8M to upgrade Central Fla. lineFollow this company (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.

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Florida had a good month on the employment front, but it’s just barely hiring above its weight class. No true with Texas, the undisputed champ so far.

By DOUGLAS HANKS

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