Miami-Dade joins national trend toward record year By Marilyn Bowden
   Mid-year reports show Miami-Dade's office market is riding high on the wave of high-tech industries, with 2000 shaping up to be a record-breaking year — a prospect that seems likely for most North American markets.
   "The first half of 2000 clearly defined South Florida's emergence as the high-tech, Internet capital of Latin America, a status that is fueling demand for office space across Miami-Dade County," says Cushman & Wakefield's MarketBeat Update.
   Cushman & Wakefield's numbers show 728,615 square feet of office space has been absorbed to date — a 52% increase over mid-year 1999 figures.
   According to RealData Information System's second quarter report, the largest absorptions were in Airport West (359,481 square feet); the central business district, not including Brickell (167,739 square feet), and Coral Gables (137,714 square feet).
   As a result, Cushman & Wakefield reports, the countywide vacancy rate dropped 2.6 percentage points to 11.3% over the past 12 months — the lowest registered in more than a decade.
   "Phenomenal activity in the central business district" — which, for Cushman & Wakefield, includes Brickell — "driven by tenant expansions and space requirements within the telecommunications industry aided the decline in vacancy," says MarketBeat Update.
   Airport West continues its long reign at the top of the charts among the county's suburban markets. An overview prepared by Insignia-ESG reports Airport West has captured almost a quarter of total year-to-date absorption.
   "Latin America continues to fuel businesses in this location," the Insignia-ESG report says, "much of which is centered around e-commerce, distribution and the general telecommunications industry."
   Airport West also remains the center of office construction activity outside the central business district, Cushman & Wakefield reports, with 595,500 square feet under way, including Opus South's Doral Concourse I, a 240,500-square-foot development, and The Hogan Group's 247,000-square-foot 703 Waterford building.
   As Insignia-ESG notes, all of the space now under construction in Airport West is class A, showing an overall trend of users looking for quality space there.
   The quoted full-service lease rate of $28.50 a square foot for 703 Waterford is the highest yet for the class A sector, Insignia reports.
   Increased demand from multinationals has lessened vacancies in Coral Gables, Cushman & Wakefield reports, but several projects in construction should offer relief.
   RealData's statistics show year-to-date absorption in Coral Gables has already reached 82% of the annual rate.
   The picture is much the same in Miami Beach, where Cushman & Wakefield says the entertainment and Internet industries are creating most of the demand and construction activity is "in full force."
   Brickell, with a number of mixed-use projects offering new office space at intervals over the next several years, shows the highest jump in rental rates over the past 12 months, according to RealData — 5.98%, with the mean quoted rent now at $26.05 a square foot and the highest at $34.
   A report on the North American office market from Oncor International puts Miami squarely in the middle of the national scene. At $69 a square foot, class A rates are highest in San Francisco. Philadelphia weighs in with the lowest at $18.08.
   "Cities throughout North America — particularly their central business districts — are growing fat on leases signed by technology and dot-com companies," Oncor reports, adding that volatility within these industries "could unsettle markets with the force of a perfect storm."
   But if the market can remain strong, this report concludes — "and Oncor analysts think it will — then the year 2000 will indeed be a record-breaker."