pga station_courtesy of catalfumo companies 770x320

Developer Daniel Catalfumo wants to demolish two office buildings at the PGA Station business park in Palm Beach Gardens in order to build more apartments.

This would be the second phase of the apartment development at PGA Station. Greenwich, Connecticut-based Richman Group of Cos. broke ground on 396 apartments there in 2022 after buying land from Catalfumo.

PGA Building 9 & 10 LLC, managed by Catalfumo, recently filed plans with the city to amend the development plan for the 37.6-acre business park at 11025 RCA Center Drive. It would remove a 48,000-square-foot office and a 9,000-square-foot office, replacing them with 620 apartments in two buildings plus two parking garages with a combined 975 spaces. The developer would make 10% of those units workforce housing.

Each of the two apartment buildings would be 13 stories tall, one with 328 units and the other with 301 units. Each building would have a rooftop pool deck, a fitness room, a game room, a club room and coworking space. One building would have a half basketball court and the other would have two pickleball courts.

 

Source: SFBJ

What Landlords Can Learn From The World’s Largest Industrial Property Owner_hand taking notes with pencil_canstockphoto25766284 770x320

Industrial properties have long been a favored investment for those seeking stable cash flow with minimal effort. Often featuring “triple net” leases, tenants cover expenses such as taxes, insurance, and maintenance.

Due to low vacancy rates, most industrial landlords primarily focus on collecting checks. However, the rise of e-commerce has transformed the industrial landscape. Online purchases require an intricate network of warehouses and distribution facilities, which has led logistics companies to demand more from their landlords in terms of building improvements and additional services, and they are willing to pay for these enhancements.

The sustainability movement has further intensified the need for industrial landlords to expand their offerings, as logistics giants like Amazon and UPS have committed to aggressive decarbonization goals. Consequently, industrial property owners must adapt to the evolving market demands and expectations driven by the growing influence of e-commerce and an increasing emphasis on environmental responsibility.

All this adds up to industrial real estate going from the property type with the least amount of tenant collaboration to one with the most in just a few decades. To meet this challenge, large industrial owners have transformed their businesses into much more of a partnership model. The largest of these industrial and logistics landlords is Prologis. They own over 1.2 billion square feet of space across the globe. Rather than just lease out space to their tenants, they work with them hand in hand to try to tailor properties and services to help them advance their business goals.

Prologis collaborates with logistics firms, such as Amazon, to support their expansion and enhance their distribution networks. They specialize in creating and managing custom logistics centers and leasing space in their properties worldwide. Beyond this, they offer a comprehensive range of services, called Prologis Essentials, including warehouse racking, renewable energy production, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and workforce solutions, making them a sought-after partner for both large and small logistics operators.

By outsourcing these supplementary tasks, logistics companies can efficiently scale their networks and transform capital-intensive investments into manageable operating expenses. While Prologis is already a critical component of the global logistics infrastructure, the company aims to further expand its role and impact.

To continue to grow what services they offer, Prologis has also created a venture investment arm that makes strategic bets on companies that they think will be able to add value to their tenants.

“We spend a lot of time talking to our clients to understand what their pain points are and how we can help them either by providing a service or introducing them to new tech solutions,” said Will O’Donnell, Managing Director at Prologis Ventures.

So far Prologis has invested in 42 companies in every stage of growth from seed to Series A rounds. Recent investments include Solarcycle, a company that repairs, refurbishes, and reuses solar panels, and Strivr, a virtual reality training platform.

“We spend the time doing our homework on technologies and piloting with companies so when we introduce them to our clients, they know they’ve been vetted,” O’Donnell said.

Right now Prologis is seeing a lot of demand for carbon reduction solutions from their clients.

“The supply chain only represents about 5 percent of the costs for retailers but has a strong carbon footprint, so it is something that retailers are very willing to pay for,” O’Donnell explained.

Prologis has hired a Chief Sustainability and Energy Officer who is solely focused on how to provide energy solutions to clients.

 

Source: propmodo

 

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Business opportunities at Port Everglades are expanding with the construction of two warehouses that will offer distribution and logistical services.

Seagis Property Group just reported that it’s 75% complete with its 199,624-square-foot speculative development at 1700 Eller Drive in Hollywood. It expects construction to be complete in September. The building sits just outside Port Everglades’ security entrance allowing for prompt entry to the seaport’s cargo terminals, Port Everglades International Logistics Center (PEILC) and Florida East Coast Railway‘s near-dock facility.

The other new build is by Bridge Industrial, which anticipates completing its 170,892-square-foot logistics facility in the second quarter of 2024. The building is less than a mile from Port Everglades at 2200 NE 7th Ave. in Dania Beach. It’s the former site of Park ‘N Fly.

“The creation of warehouses immediately adjacent to Port Everglades is an indication of our seaport’s strength and standing in the marketplace,” said CEO and Port Director Jonathan Daniels. “The private sector understands the advantages of partnering with our Port. In addition to being conveniently located near major modes of transportation, we are responsible for more than $28.6 billion worth of trade in 2022. That is attractive to businesses.”

These new privately owned warehouses will complement the PEILC, a public-private partnership with CenterPoint Properties that was built in 2020 on 16.657 acres of Port-owned property. The entire PEILC is activated as Foreign Trade-Zone No. 25 allowing for the efficient distribution of goods at lower duty and tariff costs.

By The Numbers

According to Bridge Industrial, the new Bridge Point Port Everglades warehouse will have:

  • 32-foot clear ceiling height
  • 34 dock-high doors
  • 2 drive-in doors
  • A 120-foot truck court
  • 156 car parking spaces
  • Seagis Property Group reported that its warehouse will have:
  • 36-foot clear ceiling height
  • 32 dock doors
  • 2 oversized drive-in ramps
  • 172 automobile parking spaces
  • 49 trailer parking spaces

 

Source: AJOT

swap shop_courtesy of visitflorida.com 770x320

Bargain hunters who head to the Swap Shop — the unusual decades-old shopping destination in South Florida — may start seeing its surrounding neighborhood spruced up with a string of redevelopment projects.

Lauderhill is eyeing properties around town, preparing to buy real estate, bring in food markets for lower-income areas and clean up a deteriorating part of the city.

A proposal calls for creating a newly expanded redevelopment area of 186 acres that includes the landmark Swap Shop at 3291 W. Sunrise Blvd. The venue opened in 1963 as the Thunderbird Drive-In Theater, with just one movie screen. The main building opened in 1979.

Today the Swap Shop’s drive-in theater is closed, but it has scores of retail vendors hawking shoes, clothing, electronics, jewelry, knives, among other items, and services such as a barbershop and produce stands. The region, which also includes gas stations, rests along a prominent corridor just west of Fort Lauderdale, by West Sunrise Boulevard, west of Northwest 31st Avenue.

“The corridor is a bit neglected,” acknowledges Sean Henderson, Lauderhill’s Community Redevelopment Agency director and deputy finance director.

In addition to the Swap Shop, there are various other types of businesses in the area: Northwest 31st Avenue “contains numerous junkyards, automotive repair facilities, and the Wingate landfill and incinerator,” according to a city memo.

As Lauderhill aims to redefine the eastern part of the city to take advantage of tax benefits allowed under state law, it has a challenge that could take years to overcome. To pull it off, the Lauderhill CRA is asking Broward’s county commissioners Tuesday to sign off on an expansion of its territory.

How The Improvements Would Happen

The plan would allow the Lauderhill CRA to benefit from tax increment financing, which is the money the agency gets in addition to property taxes from increases in the redevelopment area’s assessed value. The more the value of property goes up, the more money the CRA gets for additional projects.

Among the city’s goals:

  • Food Services: Attract grocery stores and “sit-down” restaurants. “We want a diversity of food options, not just Kentucky Fried Chicken,” Henderson said. He said the area is defined as a food desert, a federal government designation of places where people have trouble getting affordable, fresh, nutritious food.
  • Redevelopment: Buy properties “and do something with it,” Henderson said. The land will be scouted clandestinely (”we have third parties go for us,” Henderson said) to avoid property owners trying to jack up prices to benefit from government’s deep pockets. New land could mean pairing with developers for much-wanted projects.
  • Beautification: Clean up areas by picking up litter and adding landscaping.

In the mid-2000s, the city annexed the Swap Shop along with three communities — St. George, West Ken Lark and Broward Estates.

“With the new CRA expansion, it would also mean focusing on the Swap Shop property although not immediately,” Henderson said. “But there’s always possibilities. The city’s vision could include a mid-town on the Swap Shop land — which is on both sides of Sunrise Boulevard — with new housing and shops.”

‘The Best Swap Shop It Can Be’

But there are contingencies, he said, of the land’s requirement for it to stay a Swap Shop, at least for now. Preston Henn, the former owner who died in 2017, became a multimillionaire from the shopping venue. The Swap Shop is bequeathed to his family with one condition, Henn told the Sun Sentinel in 2013.

“They have to keep it for 20 years — it’s in the will,” Henn said.

Henderson called the Swap Shop an “incubator of small business” and there was a “possibility” some of those businesses could be coaxed to set up “retail spots within the community.”

He said he’ll meet with the Henn family at some point to “share a vision” of the “wishes and dreams of the city” and work to determine “their intent with the property.” If the Henn family wants to continue to maintain it status quo, the CRA will work with them to make it “the best Swap Shop it can be.” Henn’s family, which is now running the business, could not be reached for comment.

Planning Redevelopment

The current land already in the Lauderhill CRA’s redevelopment area is 446 acres, generally confined by State Road 7, Sunrise Boulevard and Northwest 19th Street. The expansion would bring the corridor to Plantation’s border at Broward Boulevard and include the Swap Shop on Sunrise Boulevard.

The proposed boundaries of the expansion are an extension of the existing State Road 7 CRA along West Sunrise Boulevard to Northwest 31st Avenue encompassing the Swap Shop. The boundaries are further expanded to include the commercial properties along 31st Avenue from 19th Street to Broward Boulevard, from the corner of Broward and 31st Avenue to the Lauderhill and Plantation Boundary to the west.

While any improvements to the overall neighborhood are embraced, the Swap Shop customers’ reaction to any kind of flea market adjustments was mixed. Orse Joseph, a shopper from Fort Lauderdale, arrived one cloudy morning to buy lemons and rice. She found the idea of redevelopment of the site intriguing, especially because she sees vendors struggling.

“Change is better,” Joseph said. “So many shops are closing.”

But another shopper, Elizabeth Paulin, was taken aback by the idea. She’s a regular at the Swap Shop to buy “exotic” fruits and vegetables including mangoes and avocadoes that come from the sellers’ backyards. She also has tried mabi, a drink that comes from the bark of the Mauby tree, which reminds her of root beer. She said it’s an international experience as she chats with new immigrants, and has made out Russian, Canadian and Haitian music on the speakers.

On this day she loaded a push cart with her purchases including a new-to-her pair of used pants with palm prints for 99 cents, and a picture frame. She frequents the Swap Shop as often as once a week for the last two decades and has gotten on a first-name basis with both shoppers and vendors. So Paulin, a retired nurse from Wilton Manors, doesn’t want to see anything changed.

“I never want it to close,” Paulin said. “That’s horrible to think that. It’s a hometown place. Everybody knows everybody.”

 

Source: SunSentinel