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Miami Retail Leads Nation In Rent Growth As Brands, Chefs Follow The Money

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Michelin-starred chefs and high-end retailers continue to expand into Miami as they follow their customers from places like New York, California and Chicago.

The flow of new tenants is pushing up rents to prices second only to New York City, according to a Lee & Associates report, and driving vacancy down to among the lowest levels in the country.

Miami retail vacancy is at 3.7%, 50 basis points below the national average of 4.2%, and the city leads all major U.S. markets in rent growth, rising 11.6% year-over-year to $42.40 per SF, according to a second-quarter report from Marcus & Millichap.

The market “is exponentially better in terms of occupancy and rental rates than pre-pandemic. I think it’s just a different world that we live in now,” said Lisa Ferrazza, the senior director of retail leasing at the Miami-based investment firm Tricera Capital. 

The city’s trendiest neighborhoods have seen the greatest growth, driven by a rise in demand from restaurants and luxury retailers. Asking rents in Brickell and Miami Beach were above $70 per SF at the start of April, according to Marcus & Millichap, and highly coveted space can fetch considerably more.

Ferrazza said her firm has done deals above $115 per SF in Wynwood with retailers looking to capitalize on Miami’s rising profile. She said retailers are bringing flagship stores to the city in growing numbers.

In the second quarter, Ralph Lauren and Amsterdam-based furniture company Eicholtz opened flagship locations in the Miami Design District, a high-end shopping destination that spans 18 blocks.

Lincoln Road, the iconic shopping destination in Miami Beach, landed eight new tenants this quarter, including Cheesecake Factory and a range of retailers selling everything from footwear to candy. The Museum of Ice Cream revealed plans for a 14K SF experience-focused shop at Miami Worldcenter, a 27-acre mixed-use development in Downtown Miami that will host the company’s first permanent location.

“If they have determined that Wynwood or the Design District or Lincoln Road is their market and where they want to have a flagship, they’re usually willing to pay the freight regardless,” Ferrazza said.

Much of the demand for space is coming from the food and beverage sector. Miami now has 12 restaurants with Michelin stars after the acclaimed guidebook announced in 2021 that it would begin rating restaurants in the city. The growth of the city’s food scene and influx of new residents is drawing more star chefs and creating expansion opportunities.

“Retailers are one thing,” Ferrazza said. “The pool of expanding soft goods, fashion retailers is much more shallow than the food and beverage market. That’s really where we see most of the activity.” 

Just this week, celebrity chef Juan Manuel Berrientos opened Elcielo Miami at the SLS South Beach hotel, the second location in the city for the Michelin-starred restaurant. Michael Beltran, the chef at Michelin star-earning Ariete in Coconut Grove, announced in May that he would open a cigar and cocktail bar in Miami Worldcenter.

Some of the new upscale restaurants coming to Miami are aimed squarely at the wealthy new arrivals who moved to South Florida during the pandemic.

In March, chef Shaun Hergatt announced plans for a private restaurant and speakeasy concept exclusively for residents at the Perigon condo tower in Miami Beach, which is expected to open in 2026. Weeks earlier, Todd English signed on to open a private lobby restaurant at the Bentley Residences, a 62-story luxury condo tower in Sunny Isles that is also slated to deliver in 2026.

Tricera is working on deals with chefs from Las Vegas and Boston, Ferrazza said.

“We’re getting a lot more Michelin chefs, and everybody knows how competitive the F&B market is,” she said. “So everyone is trying to outdo each other in the Miami market to have a presence to be talked about and be seen.”

Developers are responding to the strong demand by building more space. Across South Florida, there is more than 3.5M SF of retail space under construction, including around 1.9M SF in Miami as of March.

Miami is slated to see 1.6M SF of new space come online in the second half of this year, following the completion of around 400K SF through the second quarter, according to Marcus & Millichap.

Deliveries in Miami will be four times higher than in 2022 and “may result in some upward pressure on vacancy in the near-term while new stock leases up,” the report’s authors wrote. But with vacancy rates at some of the lowest levels in the country, Ferrazza said the market is well-positioned to absorb the new inventory.

The inflow of new residents, growth of tourism and the business-friendly environment in the state has made Miami an ideal location for retail tenants looking to grow, she said.

“I don’t know where else you would look if you are looking to expand throughout the country,” she said.

 

Source:  Bisnow

 

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Three Lots Slated For Brickell Megaproject

Newgard Development Group fattened up its assemblage for a Miami River megaproject by picking up three more redevelopment properties near Brickell City Centre.

Miami-based Newgard, led by founder and CEO Harvey Hernandez, paid a combined $7 million for a trio of small commercial buildings at 66 Southwest Sixth Street, 625 Southwest First Avenue and 69 Southwest Seventh Street, according to a press release.

An Avison Young team led by Michael Fay and John Crotty represented the seller, Norman Superstein Trust, which acquired the property at 66 Southwest Sixth Street for $9,100 in 1975, records show. Previous sale information for the other properties is not available. Completed in 1951 and 1953, the three buildings have a combined 19,000 square feet.

The three properties, totaling about 0.6 of an acre, will serve as the gateway to three residential towers and a marina Newgard plans to develop at a 1.6-acre site at 99 Southwest Seventh Street, the release states. Last year, Newgard paid $50.5 million for that land. The new buildings will span 2 million square feet with 400 feet of frontage on the Miami River.

 

Source:  The Real Deal

 

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Miami’s CBD Is Getting Mind-Boggling Office Rent Increases

For the first time in history, the average asking rent for office space in Miami skyrocketed to more than $50 per SF in Q2.

Brickell is dominating the market — its 42% year-over-year rent increase surpassed Manhattan and Los Angeles, according to a JLL report.

Migration of America’s top talent to Miami is the main factor driving high rents and making Miami’s office market the hottest it has ever been, Blanca Commercial Real Estate founder and owner Tere Blanca told Bisnow.

“[Miami] is a place where you can attract talent, and the talent has migrated in big numbers during the pandemic and today,” Blanca said. “With a very diverse, educated workforce and population, companies are excited to be in a city that is growing in many ways [and experiencing] a business expansion.” 

Florida added 10,522 new tech jobs last year, the second most in the country, according to the Computing Technology Industry Association. CompTIA ranked the Miami metro fourth in the U.S. for net tech jobs added, and LinkedIn reported a 30% year-over-year increase in IT and software jobs in Miami in 2021.

Blanca CRE has been a player in the industry for over 35 years. According to the firm, office development is being spurred in Brickell and Wynwood by remote work and zoning improvements.

“Brickell and Downtown have experienced a lot of this dynamic … of new people moving and choosing to live in the urban core,” Blanca said, adding that the pandemic accelerated a workforce migration that industry leaders “felt would happen sooner or later.”

The Wynwood Rezoning project, approved in 2015, led to an explosion of interest from developers. As office buildings joined residential, corporate users and investors began flocking in.

Blanca CRE was the agent when Blackstone purchased two office buildings in Miami in 2021, and Blanca said its acquisition spurred more office activity.

“That unleashed an activity that was unprecedented in terms of companies coming here, many in the financial services sector and then later the tech industry and fintech industry,” Blanca said.

Heavy hitters such as Apollo, Babylon and Citadel have come to Brickell in recent years.

Other blue-chip, out-of-town tenants moving in include Microsoft Corp. and Marsh, a subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Agency, which both moved into 830 Brickell. For coworking firms like WeWork and Industrious, the demand is at an all-time high.

“They have waiting lists, so there are many companies that have entered into licensed agreements with WeWork, IWG, Industrious and so on because they are recruiting talent, they are growing their accounts here and waiting for their permanent spaces to be delivered,” Blanca said. “We expect there is going to be tremendous demand for space on a longer-term basis as each company expands and as the executives choose where they are going to reside.”

As that happens, office demand may spill into other neighborhoods, she said.

For WeWork, this has meant finding new ways to maximize its “inherent flexibility” to accommodate the surplus of out-of-town tenants.

“We continue to see strong demand in Miami where, as shared in our Q1 2022 earnings report, we saw over 90% occupancy and accounted for 9% of commercial office leases despite representing approximately 1% of the market stock,” WeWork Territory Vice President Suzie Russell told Bisnow via email. “As a result, we have waiting lists in most of our Miami locations.” 

Russell said demand is broad-based across company sizes and industries, including tech and finance.

Initial Q2 key findings provided to Bisnow by Blanca Commercial Real Estate show that the flight-to-quality trend is positioned to continue into the foreseeable future, especially in Brickell, Wynwood, Miami Beach and the Miami Design District. That will continue driving pricing up and vacancy down.

Asking rents at 830 Brickell, considered the top-tier building in Brickell, are between $125 and $150 per SF, a $25-per-SF increase over Q1.

“This trend is extremely prominent in Tier 1 Brickell office buildings where rents increased 7.2% from the previous quarter with some landlords increasing rents between $5.00 – $7.50 per SF,” Blanca CRE said in a report. “This growth will be especially prominent in Miami’s CBD where 40% of new to market tenants are looking for space.”

Miami’s office vacancy rate is at its lowest level in eight quarters.

 

Source:  Bisnow

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