May Recap – Downtown Fort Lauderdale Riding Wave of New Development

Special thanks to Laurel Oswald, Jon Blunk and Joody Andre at Tower Commercial Real Estate for a great lunch, some amazing views and a super presentation by Jenni Morejon of the Downtown Development Authority. Tower hosted our May 11 meeting at the Tower Club at One Financial Plaza.

If you missed the presentation, shame on you. The good news is that we have Jenni’s presentation here on the blog.  The bad news is that I wasn’t able to save you a piece of cheesecake.

Some of the highlights:

Over $2 Billion in post-recession investment is either planned, completed or under construction in the CBD. This includes the new 750,000 sf County Courthouse, 11,200 residential units, 1.5 million sf of office, 433,000 sf of retail and 1,200 hotel rooms. In addition, the new wave streetcar project is in the works with service to start in 2020.

While supply will be increasing with the new development, strong demand has driven residential rental rates up by 40% over the past five years and Class-A office rental rates are up by $4 over the past 12 months.

We are looking forward to more on the CBD market next month when Stiles presents details on their new downtown mixed use project.