AIG affiliate, Western National Life Insurance Co. seized 355,000 square feet of office space last week in Deerfield Beach and Oakland Park, according to the South Florida Business Journal. The two office parks were won in foreclosure actions against AEW Capital Management. The two office parks include Hillsboro Executive Center North, which is located at 800 Fairway Drive, and Commercial Place, which is at 3230 Commercial Boulevard. The properties were mortgaged for approximately $27.5 million and $26 million, respectively. [more]

Nationwide, office space is filling up in downtown areas, while its counterpart in the suburbs remains vacant. “It’s a reversal of what we’ve been seeing in decades,” the Wall Street Journal’s Anton Troianovski says in the video above.
In the 1990s, the vacancy level was higher downtown than in the suburbs, but now downtown is leading the recovery in the office space market. “The downtown office market has stabilized, while the suburbs have lost about 280 football fields worth of space,” Troianovski said, which may be attributed to companies expanding and looking for more office space.

While the global commercial real estate market remains tenuous, with Manhattan and Miami still struggling, Newmark Knight Frank’s 2010 Global real estate markets annual review shows that progress is being made, with several office markets around the globe having shown improvement by the end of 2009. Both the Manhattan and Miami office markets hobbled through the end of the year, according to the report, with Class A office space vacancy rates of 8.1 percent and 20.8 percent, respectively, by the end of the fourth quarter. The Asia-Pacific region showed the most progress in the second half of 2009, while the fragile economies in Dubai and Spain still pose a risk for global recovery in 2010. TRD

While the finance sector suffers, Florida law firms, which have been
relatively untouched by the economic downturn, have become a dominant
force in South Florida real estate. Commercial brokers are lining up to
offer new office digs, along with concessions and modernized spaces, to
big law firms whose office leases are set to expire soon. For example,
South Florida mega firm Hunton & Williams’s lease at 1111 Brickell
Avenue is set to expire within months and the firm will have its pick
of three new Class A office buildings set for completion this year in
downtown Miami at lower prices, including the 46-story Met 2 at 333
Avenue of the Americas, 35-story 1450 Brickell, and the Brickell
Financial Centre at 600 Brickell Avenue. “Those who have space coming
up in the next couple years are in an enviable position,” said Bowman
Brown, managing partner of Shutts and Bowen’s Miami office. [Miami Herald]
[more]

Broward County office space has been hit with a decrease in demand across
all grades of office space and every submarket in Broward County, and the
vacancy rate is projected to climb to 19 percent. A fourth-quarter office report by
Marcus & Millichap, the nation’s largest real estate investment services
firm, said rents also will decline, falling to their lowest level since
2007. Gregory Matus, regional manager of the Fort Lauderdale office of the
brokerage, said deal activity this year has consisted primarily of sales of
less than $1 million to owner-users. This year, asking rents are forecast to
fall 4.8 percent to $25.15 per square foot. Effective rents are projected to
slide 8.5 percent to $20.14 per square foot. In 2008, asking rents gained
0.9 percent, and effective rents declined 1 percent. TRD

The Related Companies will gamble a quarter of a million dollars to
convert Downtown West Palm Beach residential lofts to office space, a
move with millions of dollars at stake. Over the next two months, Related will convert the live/work lofts on Rosemary Avenue in CityPlace to premium office space called the Offices at CityPlace North. Related will also refurbish two elevators that service both floors of offices, upgrade lighting fixtures, install new hardware and tenant signage and give the building a fresh coat of paint as part of its effort to retain and attract tenants. [more]