'Commercial real estate welcomes new users, vacancies low'

Doral’s commercial real estate remains strong as the city welcomes new users seeking its prime location.

Doral’s commercial real estate has remained steady, said Carlos Villanueva, district sales manager for the Coral Gables and Coconut Grove office at the Keyes Company. Demand in the city remains strong due to its geography, access to roadways and agglomeration.

“You look at retail absorption, strong,” he said. “You look at industrial absorption, also strong. The only weaker category has been office, and we’re starting to see kind of a bounce back because of emplyers demanding their employees, at least some of the key employess, to come back to the actual office. Overall, the demand in Doral for commercial real estate remains very strong.”

Doral used to be mostly farmland, said Matt Rotolante, president and broker at Lee and Associates South Florida. Today, from a highway standpoint, the city is at the center of the spider web as Doral sits essentially at the center of the Palmetto, Turnpike, and I-95.

“What the city of Doral has done a great job of,” said Mr. Rotolante, “is changing the manner of what Doral was, to becoming more than just an industrial, commercial hub, to also including residential.”

Additionally, Mr. Rotolante said, recent significant transactions showcase the demand in Doral’s commercial real estate scene.

"I know there's been some headwinds with some of the tariff announcements starting in April and May," he said, "but we're seeing continued leasing absorption at a pretty high level. I would say overall vacancy rates are relatively low, especially for retail and industrial."

In recent months, he said, beginning when the tariff announcements began, certain logistic channels have been disrupted.

“People have been trying to adjust where they can to accommodate,” said Mr. Rotolante, “and where they haven’t been able to, those businesses are basically looking to let go of some space. So we’ve seen some subleases hit the market, meaning people that were occupying maybe 100,000 square feet might decide to sublease half of it, or all of it, depending on how that business is dealing with it. "However, absorption is still being seen.

South Florida, said Mr. Rotolante, is a distribution hub in which people can come, obtain a bonded warehouse or a Foreign Trade Zone warehouse, and import and export into the Caribbean and South America from South Florida as a hub.

“From an industrial standpoint," said Mr. Rotolante, "for certain a good large portion of the companies locating in the Doral market are going to be import [or] export related. They're doing customs third-party logistics for other companies. We also have companies that are operating here directly: Walmart, Amazon, just moving their own products here and taking advantage of the consumption that’s taking place. Basically, you’re going to see a lot of companies looking to benefit from proximity to the airport and the seaports to be able to get their products into the warehouse and then send them to where they need to be on a national scale, if not international scale.”

The users of commercial real estate in Doral, said Mr. Villanueva, are a combination of national tenants seeking the geography of Doral due to its access to the airports and highways.

South Florida is also a land-constrained market, said Mr. Rotolante. "We have what we call the urban development boundary line. You can't go west into the Everglades, we can't develop into the Atlantic Ocean, or Gulf of Mexico. The land that we have is the land that we have. That's what's continue to increase the prices of the overall real estate as well."

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About Lee & Associates South Florida

Lee & Associates South Florida is a fully vertical commercial real estate brokerage firm focused on industrial, office, retail, multifamily, investment and land sectors. Our dedicated team of professionals is led by Matthew Rotolante, CCIM, SIOR a 4th generation South Florida native in a family that has owned and operated commercial property here since 1928. Lee & Associates is the largest agent owned brokerage in the nation with Senior Agent’s ability to earn profit share resulting in the highest splits while still receiving full resources, support and leads from our national network. Our collaborative and cheerful culture allows for open communications throughout the company, fostering the sharing of information and best practices to better enable client decision making.  The Lee & Associates’ robust national network that sold and leased over $120 Billion in the last 5 years offers clients a cross-market platform of expertise and deal opportunities across all asset specialties and representation roles. For the latest news from Lee & Associates South Florida, visit leesouthflorida.com or follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram, our company local news.

About Lee & Associates

Lee & Associates is a commercial real estate brokerage sales, leasing and management firm. Established in 1979, Lee & Associates has grown its service platform to include over 75 offices in the United States and Canada. Lee & Associates is the largest agent owned commercial real estate brokerage where agents get the greatest return for their efforts and hence are more committed and better enabled to provide superior results for their customers.  For the latest news from Lee & Associates, visit lee-associates.com or follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Link, our company blog.