The notion of costly deleveraging and growing numbers of distressed properties make for a grim outlook for access to capital for South Florida commercial deals in 2010.

Most analysts predict commercial real estate vacancies will continue to rise while rents decrease across South Florida. Many expect the market to hit bottom this year.

According to a 2010 emerging trends in real estate report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Land Institute, 2010 and 2011 will present generational opportunities for investors to buy at near cyclical lows, nationally and in South Florida. Access to capital remains a critical factor. [more]

The bleak outlook for Miami’s commercial real estate market is not confined to the downtown core. Even in the formerly robust Airport West submarket, marquee projects like One Park Doral are flagging.

One Park Doral, which opened October 2009, is Miami’s newest Class A office building. The project is the first phase of Park Square at Doral, a 51-acre mixed-use development with office, retail, hotel and multi-family residential properties. As 2010 progresses, its only tenants are its developer, Shoma Group along with Alcora Group and Visit Us, which signed a lease earlier this month.

Blanca Commercial Real Estate took on the task of filling the building in a down market. It’s one that offers landlords far fewer prospects, as businesses fail or stay put in a weak economy, providing prospective tenants with ample negotiating power. [more]

Property management will now be part of Steelbridge Capital’s range of services, an expansion of the new commercial real estate investment firm. Steelbridge will absorb Miami-based Max Property Management, a property manager working with lenders on bank-owned properties. It will now operate as Steelbridge Real Estate Services, and retain brothers Anthony Manno and Michael Manno, who were co-managing principals at Max Property. Jeremy Larkin, president of NAI Miami Commercial Real Estate Services Worldwide, said the Max Property partnership is a good fit because it diversifies Steelbridge’s revenue stream. [SFBJ]

The region’s commercial real estate market will rebound slowly, but isn’t as badly off as media reports indicate, attendees of the fourth annual RealShare South Florida conference said on Wednesday. Conference speakers, including Jay Caplin, managing principal of Steelbridge Capital, said the state’s economy will pick up, but that the commercial market will remain slow over the next three years. Orlando Sharpe, president of Sharpe Project Development, said longer-term investments were necessary.

Veterans and newcomers to South Florida commercial real estate are
ready to leave the sidelines and start picking up properties at bargain
prices. Boca Raton-based Woolbright Development, a fixture in South
Florida real estate, has been joined by Miami-based Steelbridge Capital
and other new arrivals as they ready acquisition plans. The climate is
right. Institutional investors such as the California Public Employees’
Retirement System, which in July turned over the Downtown at the
Gardens mall in Palm Beach Gardens, want to shed distressed assets. [more]

The number of homes sold under the gavel in South Florida jumped over
the past year, as auctions become a more acceptable method for
distressed buyers to move property in today’s real estate market. “I would say there has definitely been an increase [in auctions],” said Laura Brady,
president of Concierge Auctions, a Florida-based company whose principals have run
more than 100 residential real estate auctions in Florida over the past
two years. A massive Italian Renaissance-style estate on Coconut Palm Road in Boca
Raton owned by former H. Wayne Huizenga associate Richard Rochon, who
defaulted on the mortgage, exemplifies the luxury home bracket of the
auction market. Concierge Auctions reports that the home is now under
contract after the private auction July 11. Only bidders who presented
a $250,000 deposit were allowed into the event. Concierge will not
release the contract price until the transaction is closed, at the
owner’s request. [more]

Another top executive at Cushman & Wakefield has left the
beleaguered commercial real estate firm. Jay Caplin, head of the
capital markets group in Florida and a 22-year company veteran, moved
to Steelbridge Capital as a managing principal, a Miami real estate
investment firm. Cushman’s Tere Blanca, a former branch manager,
started her own firm last year, and Florida executive director Hank
Klein was told in June that his position was being eliminated in a
reorganization. Deal flow has been sparse at Cushman this year. [more]