2017 Miami-Dade County Bus Tour

On November 2, I had the pleasure, along with the entire ComReal Miami-Coral Gables brokers, to participate in the National Association of Industrial and Office Parks (NAIOP) Miami-Dade County Bus Tour.   The bus tour is an annual event, all day event, attended by brokers, owners and other real estate professionals.  It was an opportunity to learn of new developments in the market, and we toured as far west to the Urban Development Boundary (UDB), east to the revised Omni development, north to Miami Lakes, and south to Coral Gables.

This year’s theme, the Miami Express, was tied to the upcoming movie, Murder on the Orient Express, a murder mystery.  Offering moments of levity to the day, participants were to look for clues throughout the day and those that found one, won prizes.  The idea was to solve a murder mystery.

The opportunities were abundant for networking and education.   There are typically two (2) moderators, one office and one industrial specialist on each bus.  This year there were 2 buses.  Our bus, Bus 1 was sponsored by Miller Construction.  We were fortunate to have Jack Lowell and Michael Silver moderating, with a combined 80+ years of experience.  Veterans in office and industrial, these gentlemen took us back in time and shared their knowledge and history of how office and industrial product has changed, the reason for these changes to include hurricane standards, increased traffic congestion due to the increasing population, maximizing on space for warehouses, downsizing of space for office users (WeWork), park settings, parking ratios, code changes, impact, movements of building boundaries, and everything else associated with development.

We also had speakers from the Beacon Council (Miami’s economic development partnership), Brightline, and Florida Power and Light.

There were 30 buildings featured on the tour, 15 office buildings, with Brightline being uniquely retail, office and rail, and 15 industrial buildings.   There are more industrial buildings that are new or being developed in comparison to office.  The demand for industrial space has been extremely strong, with vacancy at approximately 5%.

New Industrial Buildings included:

South Florida Logistics Center

Prologis Beacon Lakes 26 currently under construction to be completed 2018

DCT Commerce Center, under construction for delivery Q4 2017

Flagler Station Phases 1, 2, 3

Miami International Tradeport

Airport North Logistics Park

Miami Industrial Logistics Center

Countyline Corporate Park

New Office Buildings included:

Downtown Doral – 6 existing and 1 being planned in a mixed-use community on 120 acres; Veteran brokers know this is the former Koger site.

800 Waterford

Citigroup Center, under renovation

WeWork, 75,000 sq. ft. of collaborative office space and private offices

MiamiCentral 300,000 sq. ft. of Class A office space, 180,000 sq. ft. of innovative retail and dining including Central Fare, Miami’s first, true food hall experience; 816 apartments and the home of Brightline

Repurposed Buildings included:

The Landing at MIA was built flex and has been repurposed to office.

The Omni was built retail and has been repurposed to office.

Walk Throughs included:

Miami Industrial Logistics Center – an interesting fact is that ceiling height have moved from an 24’ high to 32’

WeWork Security Building – shared office space and private offices.

Omni @ Biscayne – changed from retail to office in an effort to attract corporate headquarters that would benefit being close to the Port of Miami.

Details of all 30 sites to include square footage, asking rates, parking ratios, building and park features, amenities and more are presented in the tour book.