GlobeSt.com’s Florida Blog
Ever wonder what else could become of all our vacant buildings and lots while landlords clamor for tenants? BusinessWeek magazine has some interesting ideas, some of which might work pretty well in Florida.
The magazine put out a call for various ideas and ran them unedited. Many of them came from architects, who are constantly striving to turn lemons into lemonade when it comes to empty shells and wide open spaces.
Here are a few more notes and quotes from last week’s RealShare South Florida conference in Miami, which was attended by 275 people and deemed a solid success. In case you missed it, or even if you were there, you can read more about it here and here, but here are some other highlights:
• The region’s current oversupply of residential condominium units could be absorbed over the next four years, according to panelists of a discussion on the multifamily sector. There is still plenty of interest in both individual and bulk unit acquisitions, particularly from private-capital investors and foreign buyers from Canada and Israel.
An apartment complex in Florida is among eight properties listed for sale by San Diego-based Trigild Inc. The 232-unit Blanding Place is located in Orange Park.
Trigild was appointed receiver of the properties, most of which are in Arizona, after Irvine, CA-based Bethany Group abandoned them last spring. The nearly 3,000 units represent $250 million in defaulted loans.
Happy Birthday, Commercial Grove! It’s been an entire year since the fine folks at GlobeSt.com unleashed this blog. We’ll try to pass around enough cake so you don’t wind up like Milton.
• Even after an entire year, one of the most popular items on this blog is an early one about the prospect of Trader Joe’s opening stores in Florida. Much to my surprise, people are such fans of the retailer that they seek out any information they can find and they invariably wind up here.
Here’s a six-pack for those of you who didn’t get enough during the opening weekend of the NFL:
• This sounds like something from a news parody site, but it’s legitimate scoop straight from the Orlando Sentinel: Cameron Kuhn, the former high-flying real estate developer, has established a crepe cart business with his wife, Traci Sihle.
Seriously, this is a guy who was once credited with redeveloping Downtown Orlando, and now he’s going to be selling crepes on the street. Well, he won’t actually serve them, but Sihle gives him credit for conjuring the idea.
A few notes and thoughts after clearing out the inbox from a long Labor Day weekend:
• You can now register online for our fourth-annual RealShare South Florida conference, set for Sept. 30 at the Hyatt Regency Miami. We will cover a broad range of topics in a single afternoon, from distressed assets and excess condos to the new wave of office space coming soon to the market.
Featured speakers will include Gene Berman of Marcus & Millichap, Tere Blanca of Blanca Commercial Real Estate, Michael Fay of Colliers Abood Wood-Fay, Keith Jennings of Westmount Realty Capital, Jose Juncadella of Fairchild Partners, Jonathan Kingsley of Grubb & Ellis, David Lynd of the Lynd Co., Jay Massirman of Rivergate Residential, Jack McCabe of McCabe Research and Eric Swanson of Flagler.
Here are some interesting thoughts from Mario Iglesias, a real estate attorney with Roetzel & Andress in Fort Lauderdale who recently penned this column for GlobeSt.com. He points out that a large number of foreclosures in Florida have been abandoned because of the widespread failure of foreclosing lenders to produce original promissory notes.
“A plaintiff must produce to the court the original promissory note as a condition before obtaining a mortgage foreclosure judgment,” Iglesias says. “Florida has a well-developed law that helps plaintiffs judicially establish a lost note in foreclosure cases when the lender in good faith has either lost the note or it was stolen or destroyed. However, in many of the cases we are seeing today, some lenders cannot even produce anyone from their institutions who can swear under oath that the institution came into possession of the original note.”
As the deadline for another issue of Real Estate Florida approaches, allow me to declutter my mind and desk a little:
• The International Council of Shopping Centers is hosting its annual Florida Conference next week at Gaylord Palms in Kissimmee, with at least 5,000 expected in attendance. A slight amount of falloff is expected because of the recession and a perceived shutdown in retail development, but don’t expect empty corridors and booths.
“It’s not going to be a doom-and-gloom conference,” says Dale Scott, ICSC state director. “The retail developer is as creative a person as you’re going to find. They’ll figure out a way to adapt to what is out there. The attitudes are changing.”
Florida’s unemployment rate currently stands at 10.6%, with 970,000 state residents out of work. Another 1,000 was added this week with the abrupt closing of Taylor Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corp.
The Ocala-based mortgage broker decided Wednesday to shut down rather than face further scrutiny from federal authorities who raided Taylor Bean’s headquarters earlier this week. The firm had 30 days to appeal its suspension by the FHA.
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