by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
Getting four people together to predict the future often provides four different perspectives. Not so with the April meeting of the Commercial Real Estate Women of Jacksonville.
They agreed: the market isn’t good now but hang on for a year or so.
The panel included Peter Anderson of Pattillo, Lindsey Ballas of the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission, Gary Henderson of Norfolk Southern and Bill Spinner of Spinner Construction. Jeff Evans of Colliers Dickinson was the moderator for the discussion, held at a luncheon meeting at Maggiano’s at the St. Johns Town Center.
When asked about the investment market and what they see in the future, most of the panelists agreed: it’s a hard market right now.
“Right now, you could say it’s slow,” said Henderson. “You could maybe say it’s closer to stop right now. There is some activity but, for the rest of this year, I really don’t expect to see it change much. Maybe by the end of the year it will pick up, but it will depend on the ability to borrow money for projects and the demand. Right now, the demand is just not there to support it. Things are pretty flat right now.”
Ballas said the JEDC is focusing on trying to recruit for economic development projects to Jacksonville and create a demand for projects.
“We don’t really see us pulling out of this any time this year,” said Ballas.
“At best, we think it will be at the end of 2010 that we will see some increase in demand for industrial space. We definitely hitched our wagons to the port expansion. The port expansion was driven by the need for imports here in Jacksonville and products leaving the country based on the lower value of the dollar.
“Both of those things have affected our level of throughput in the Jacksonville area which will obviously lead to the need for more industrial space. We are trying to create demand. A lot of our prospects are coming from international companies.”
Ballas said that Jacksonville will definitely be prepared to meet the demand when the demand does come back.
Said Anderson, “The market is still falling. There is an increase in vacancies, so not only are there not new projects, there are many projects that are in trouble out there.
“But that will settle out in about 24 months or so and then Jacksonville will be as good a place to be as anywhere else in this industry.”
Spinner said there is a lot of activity in the market, but no one is pulling the trigger at this time.
“There is a lot of uncertainty,” he said. “Once we get a couple of months of good news, I think we’ll see some business out there. The next 12-24 months, we will see continued emphasis on leasing. You’ll see higher quality buildings go up because I think a lot of the absorption will take place. I think the future is bright in Jacksonville. I think we are situated in the right position here for industrial.”
Spinner said right now is the time to build your business with the very best people, control cost and negotiate hard for land.
“It’s also important to take good care of your tenants,” said Spinner.
Anderson said his company believes in a lot of prayer.
“It’s important for us to keep our eye on the ball,” said Anderson. “We need to make sure as a marketplace and a community that we remain an attractive community for industries of all types.
“The positive side of this is that we can all catch our breath. Maybe development was a little overwhelming for certain parts of our community and a little bit out of control. This will allow us to have a more thoughtful plan for future development throughout Northeast Florida. Not everything is going to work. We need more skilled professionals in our industry and in Jacksonville.”
Ballas said the city is taking their time preparing for the future to do it right.
“From our perspective in this low point, we have been able to take our time and prepare our infrastructure investments around the ports so we can handle the incoming capacity from the port that can help our industrial properties and help people with property around the port,” said Ballas.
She said we need to work harder to attract new business to our community.
“We need to work on things that will make us a stronger region,” said Ballas. “We are working hand in hand will all of our regional economic partners through education of the workforce, promotion of product and promotion of the port.”