Local art studio Illsol recently installed this mural at Westshore City Center, which Franklin Street is redeveloping as part of the efforts to improve the Westshore Business District and its surrounding areas
Tampa residents have become accustomed to seeing cranes lifting steel beams onto downtown apartment towers and bulldozers clearing land for new office buildings in the Midtown Tampa development.
That won’t go away anytime soon, says Andrew Wright, the CEO and managing partner of the commercial real estate firm Franklin Street. But don’t expect to see any new projects get underway in the next six to 12 months.
“In terms of real estate projects themselves, for the most part, the trains are on the tracks. You don’t see that immediate adjustment like you would see, maybe, in a restaurant,” he says.
“Certainly going forward it’s going to have a lot of impacts,” he adds.
Throughout the pandemic, Franklin Street has hosted a series of webinars with experts from across different segments of commercial real estate, from retail to investments and insurance, to help businesses determine a path forward. Abbey Dohring Ahern, whose Dohring Group represents both tenants and landlords in the office and retail spaces, says virtual tours have become popular with clients taking a first look at a property over the last few months, somewhat of a new innovation for commercial real estate.
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In the last few years, rental rates around the downtown and South Tampa areas have hovered near $40 or $50 a square foot and been out of reach for many small businesses. Ahern says shifts in the market spurred by the pandemic may give these business owners access to the city’s most desirable real estate for the first time.
“I think there’s going to be some opportunity there,” she says. “There might be a little more inventory coming back to us [to] find more spaces for the local [businesses].”
But, for the most part, there are a lot of unknowns in the short-term future of commercial real estate, both Wright and Ahern say.
“How long is it going to last? How deep is the impact? We don’t know where the end is,” Wright says. “All of these things kind of bundle into uncertainty. That then, by way of that uncertainty, gets into psychology [and] how people interact with each other.”
The concept of social distancing and the desire for personal space encouraged by the pandemic will likely find its way into office design, Ahern says. She predicts a resurgence in the individual office for some businesses, as well as a continued embrace of remote work.
“We’re seeing a need for “right-sizing,” she explains. “Some [businesses] will need more space as they move away from the cube-farm with shared common spaces. Others will need less space as several members of their teams realize they can effectively work from home and rely on platforms like Zoom to keep the interactive work environment in full force.”
Wright expects to see new features inside offices that will reduce the number of surfaces employees touch, like keyless entries and smart elevators, plus glass dividers or other cubicle-like setups.
“I think it’s going to take a little while longer on the office side to see how it really plays out,” he says. “But ultimately it will impact design, and I think it will suppress demand.”
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Dohring Ahern
1110 N. Florida Ave., Ste. 110 Tampa, FL 33602