Transportation assets are the biggest local force driving change in commercial real estate in Northeast Florida, said Colin Nicholson, president of CBC Benchmark in Jacksonville.
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Companies are making bets on a growing Nassau County, new commercial pockets along the planned First Coast Expressway and accelerating development at Cecil Commerce Center, the former Navy base.
Here’s Nicholson’s breakdown on each:
New business will track path of new expressway
New hospitals are opening in Clay County and investors are making bets on land in St. Johns County in expectation of the First Coast Expressway, now in its first phase of construction.
The route hasn’t been dictated through St. Johns County yet, Nicholson said. But, there’s a lot of speculation tied to where the new Shands Bridge will be built.
Once built, the beltway will ease the commute between homes in Clay and St. Johns counties and job centers in Duval, providing a boost to residential development.
Clay County’s bigger issue, though, is how to attract more local jobs.
Nicholson said the beltway will help with that, as well.
“Once you have that employee base it’s easier for companies to see Clay County as a place to locate a business,” Nicholson said. “Eventually it will attract office development.”
Port’s new rail connection will boost Cecil
Cecil Commerce Center is already an industrial real estate success story. Now, JaxPort’s new Intermodal Container Transfer Facility will give international companies like G.E. Oil & Gas even more of a reason to move there.
A facility that moves container cargo directly from ships to rail and vice versa, the ICTF will make transporting goods between Cecil and the port a lot easier, Nicholson said.
“They haven’t announced, but there are a lot of national firms looking to create a Florida headquarters,” Nicholson said. “There’s a tremendous amount of interest in Jacksonville.”
Nassau will grow with widening of Florida A1A
The widening of Florida A1A and new pro-business attitudes are fueling growth in Nassau County, Nicholson said.
Now rebounding from the recession and poised to take advantage of growth at the port, Nassau could become Northeast Florida’s next St. Augustine, Nicholson said.
“You saw a lot of bedroom-community developments that were just mothballed and taken back by banks during the recession,” he said. “They’re bustling right now.”
Road expansion to the east and west of Interstate 95 is opening up new housing markets. And Terrapointe’s planned East Nassau Development Center will accelerate that development.
Coldwell Banker recently leased nearly half of a 350,000-square-foot warehouse in Yulee that was dormant for 10 years.
“Nassau has become very pro-business development,” Nicholson said. “They’ve been reaching out to all of the brokerage companies.”