Insurance firm seeks to back up market confidence

Executives at FCCI Insurance Group, one of the largest non-government employers in the Sarasota-Manatee region, have something not seen in several years: Faith in a rebound of the local commercial real estate market.

This isn't mere idle chitchat or optimism because they are tired of being pessimistic. In fact, FCCI intends to build a four-story Class A office building on land it owns in Lakewood Ranch, on the Sarasota County side of the master-planned community. The 105,000-square-foot building would be for new tenants, either a local company expansion or a business recruited to town, not FCCI.

The building is in the early planning stages, and FCCI executives say they won't build it until a majority is pre-leased. “We're not going to launch spec,” says TrammellCrow Co. Senior Managing Director Robert Abberger, a consultant on the project. “No one is launching spec, unless you are in Washington, D.C.”