Southwest Florida Industrial Market

Southwest Florida's industrial market, much like its larger counterpart — the Interstate 4 corridor between Tampa and Orlando — has rebounded significantly and consistently since the end of the Great Recession. Vacancy has fallen from a high of 13.8% in 2009 in Collier, Charlotte and Lee counties, to 3.1% — a decade low — at the close of the third quarter of this year.

Curiously, rental rates remain lower today than at the end of 2006, when they averaged $9.65 per square foot in the three counties. Today's average rental rate, too, is just 74-cents higher than in 2009, what was considered the nadir of the market.

A decade ago, too, more than 1.4 million square feet of new space was under construction, versus the roughly 235,000 square feet that is being built today.
That figure is significant because at the end of 2006 — generally considered the high-water mark for commercial real estate in Florida's recent history — the
Southwest Florida vacancy rate was 3.6%, roughly equivalent to the third quarter 2016 figure.