Office space keeps getting built, filled

By KYLE PARKS

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 24, 2000

There's 6-million square feet of new office space going up around Florida.

That's a tremendous amount of space. Consider this: It's equivalent to the combined square footage of west-central Florida's 15 largest office towers.

Florida office construction has been on a tear since 1998, and it shows no signs of letting up. Though the economy may be softening, there's no reason to be nervous, said Larry Richey, who runs state operations for the Cushman & Wakefield real estate company.

"Look at how fast buildings are filling up," he said. "Job growth and population growth just continue to be phenomenal in Florida."

When real estate professionals gauge a market's health, they look at construction, absorption and vacancy rates.

And healthy absorption -- more than 3.8-million square feet of space has been filled this year across Florida -- is keeping the statewide vacancy rate at a reasonably low 13.4 percent.

But don't take this optimism as a sign downtown Tampa is ready for a new office tower just yet, Richey said.

"Tampa is only now recovering from building three downtown towers at the same time in the early '90s," he said. "Things are going to have to tighten up more for a new building to start."

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