About 100 commercial brokers and other real estate professionals spent Thursday touring office and industrial properties.
There was a lot to talk about.
Projects are breaking ground, leasing up, repositioning and some were further confirmed, such as the Amazon.com sortation center at Westside Industrial Park.
Park representative Peter Anderson couldn’t discuss the tenant, although the Amazon name was on a sign at a work trailer in front of the building under renovation.
The NAIOP Commercial Real Estate Trade Association Northeast Florida Chapter arranged the trip, covering 20 office properties and eight industrial projects, including bonus drive-bys such as the Amazon.com fulfillment center in Cecil Commerce Center.
Members filled three buses, scheduled to stop at some properties and drive by others while representatives narrated the developments.
All three visited 11 of the office properties, but split for lunch with two continuing to view offices and one to tour industrial projects.
Also, other properties not officially on the tour were in view along the route.
The area’s office market ended the first quarter with a vacancy rate of 8.7 percent. Class A vacancy was 9.8 percent.
Industrial vacancy was just 5.2 percent. “It’s a pretty tight market right now,” said Bobby Gatling, first vice president of CBRE, representing International Tradeport in North Jacksonville.
6805 Southpoint Parkway
About $600,000 in exterior upgrades were scheduled to start Thursday at 6805 Southpoint Parkway, a former Comcast operations and call center being repositioned for new tenants.
The city approved a permit Wednesday for Bent Construction LLC to do the work.
Now called the 6805 Building, the almost 120,000-square-foot building is being positioned for back-office operations and other uses. Work includes roofing, new HVAC, skylights, parking lot upgrades and the significant exterior renovation.
JLL, the leasing agent, previously described the planned improvements as a transformation of the exterior “from a complex with a largely industrial park feel to a sleek, modern office building.”
Public records show at least $1.7 million in property and exterior work has been undertaken or planned. It should be completed about August.
The structure, a former Duracell distribution center, was built in 1989. Its most recent tenant was Comcast Corp., which moved. IP Capital Partners bought the building in April 2015.
Sears Logistics Center
In 2018, what is considered the state’s largest available industrial building will be ready for a new tenant.
Sears, which has been struggling financially and closing Sears and Kmart stores, opted not to renew its lease at the 815,000-square-foot North Jacksonville warehouse it rents from Pattillo Industrial Real Estate.
Pattillo Vice President Peter Anderson said previously the building will be available for new tenants in March.
Anderson said the 140-acre site, at 2969 Faye Road, has additional land available for development.
A Sears spokesman said the company made a business decision not to renew the lease, but that it had other facilities in the Jacksonville area.
The structure was built in 2008 for Sears’ use.
Anderson said previously the property will be attractive to industry because of the available labor pool in the surrounding Northeast Florida area and the site’s proximity to the Jacksonville Port Authority marine terminals, Jacksonville International Airport and Interstates 295, 95 and 10.
The center is near Pattillo’s NorthPoint Industrial Park submarket.
BMW regional parts distribution center
Site clearing was in full force for BMW of North America LLC at land recently added to Westside Industrial Park.
The Conlan Co. is the contractor for the 445,000-square-foot regional distribution center under development on 28 acres at 5560 Imeson Road.
BMW runs its smaller parts center in Westside Industrial Park. A spokesman said previously that the company plans to complete construction in late 2018 on the new center.
The city approved site clearing in September and is reviewing a building permit application for the $5.8 million building.
The center is an estimated $30 million project.
Amazon.com sortation center
The sign on a work trailer at 4948 Bulls Bay Highway removed any doubt that Amazon.com will use the space.
That’s in addition to Amazon’s identification on building-permit applications for the 237,053-square-foot Westside Industrial Park building.
A permit application shows the e-commerce retailer will sort small packages there.
Seattle-based Amazon hasn’t announced the sortation center, or a delivery station being built-out in North Jacksonville, but has announced its two major fulfillment centers under construction for small packages in Northwest Jacksonville and large items in West Jacksonville.
The sortation center is expected to create more than 200 jobs and represents a capital investment exceeding $5 million.
Amazon’s Cecil fulfillment center
The 1 million-square-foot Amazon.com fulfillment center is progressing at Cecil Commerce Center in West Jacksonville.
Hillwood Investment Properties, the master developer at Cecil, bought the 86-acre site at 13333 103rd St. from the city, which approved site work in October.
Plans filed for the Cecil Amazon center show a construction cost of $56.5 million.
Seattle-based Amazon announced Jan. 4 it would open the fulfillment center to handle large consumer items, while an Amazon center under development in Northwest Jacksonville will deal with small consumer items.
Both are expected to open in the fall. The Conlan Co. is the contractor for both.
The total investment in both is projected to be $315 million and total employment will be 2,700, according to city legislation.
More projects
Among other projects, the 407,435-square-foot speculative warehouse at 4660 New World Ave. in Cecil Commerce Center should be available by September.
The building is designed to accommodate a single or multiple tenants.
The office tour buildings, addresses and representatives were:
Prominence Building 700, 8875 Liberty Ridge Drive, JLL
Baymeadows Business Center, 8226 Philips Highway, NAI Hallmark Partners
Centurion Square, 8380-8386 Baymeadows Road, Cushman & Wakefield
The Quadrant I and II, 4651 and 4655 Salisbury Road, Cushman & Wakefield
Enterprise Park, 4190 Belfort Road, Lingerfelt CommonWealth Partners
6735 and 6737 Southpoint Drive, Colliers International Northeast Florida
6805 Southpoint Parkway, JLL
Bowden Commerce Center, 6500 Bowden Road, Cushman & Wakefield
Deerwood South, 10151 Deerwood Park Blvd., Touchton Property Partners
One Deerwood, 10201 Centurion Parkway, Cushman & Wakefield
Town Center One, Gate Parkway, Avison Young
Park Place at Nocatee, Nocatee Parkway, Avison Young
Fort Wade Road Office Park, 203 Fort Wade Road, Ponte Vedra, CBRE
841 Prudential, 841 Prudential Drive, JLL
Stein Mart Building, 1200 Riverplace Blvd., JLL
Riverplace Tower, 1301 Riverplace Blvd., JLL
Bank of America Tower, 50 N. Laura St., JLL
100 North Laura, 100 N. Laura St., Prime Realty
Lakeside Center, 7901 and 7933 Baymeadows Way and 8641 Baypine Road, Cushman & Wakefield
The Reflections, 7775 and 7785 Baymeadows Way, NAI Hallmark Partners
The industrial tour properties, addresses and representatives were:
JaxPort, 2381 Talleyrand Ave., Jacksonville Port Authority
Imeson Industrial Park, 780 Whittaker Road, JLL
International Tradeport, 13910 Alvarez Road, CBRE
International Tradeport 3 and 4, 13475 and 13525 International Parkway, Cushman & Wakefield
NorthPort Logistics Center, 11530 New Berlin Road, Newmark Grubb Phoenix Realty Group
NorthPoint Industrial Park, 3850 Port Jacksonville Parkway, Pattillo Industrial Real Estate
Westside Industrial Park, 4948 Bulls Bay Highway, Pattillo Industrial Real Estate
Cecil Commerce Center, 4660 New World Ave., CBRE
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