Mid Atlantic Real Estate Journal — 2013 Forecast — January 11 - 24, 2013 — 15C
www.marejournal.com
2013 F orecast By Neil J. Simon, Blake Real Estate Inc.
DC area economy expands despite impending government cutbacks & the trickledown effect
D
espite worries of im- pending government cutbacks and the
ness centers. In the coming year, Blake will continue to explore other ways in which
more production from less space and a different utili- zation of their existing office
tunate to have construction, leasing, and property man- agement departments in house that provide tenants with a coordinated bundle of services we call “Star Ser- vice”. Retaining tenants and enticing new ones pays great dividends to all Landlords,. Blake maintains greater than a 95% occupancy level on a portfolio of over 2.5 mil- lion s/f of prime space. It is our firm’s belief that responsive ownership, timely paying commissions, and providing candid access di- rectly to decision makers,
reaps major benefits that keep our properties very com- petitive, even in the recent difficult times. As we embark on 2013 with the financial uncertainty in Congress still looming in the background, it is our prediction that by the end of the year it will be noticeably improving after a somewhat flat beginning and 2014 will be a year of strong upward improvement. Neil J. Simon is vice president of Blake Real Estate Inc. inWashington, DC. n
trickledown e f f e c t o n many Wash- ington based government contractors; the region i s s e e i n g relative eco- nomi c e x - pansion.
Blake Real Estate is fortunate to have construction, leasing, and property management departments in house that provide tenants with a coordinated bundle of services we call “Star Service”.
to appeal to the firms who are downsizing and looking for value oriented space. The market has spoken and the right sizing of many firms has been going on for the past couple of years. Ev- ery industry appears to be figuring out if they can get
layout. The vast majority of renewals are dealing with opening up spaces, or reduc- ing office sizes, which forces Landlords to be challenged to fast track construction and help tenants obtain the most for their money. Blake Real Estate is for-
Neil J. Simon
Positive employment num- bers outside the government sector and a diversifying job market put the Washington MetropolitanArea in a unique position as its dependency on the Federal Government as a major employer decreases. While it is slower than we would all prefer, it is a solid, steady, improving market- place, and one of the best in the country. We have a more diversified economy than previously, when our dependency was so strong on the Federal Government. As an example of that fact, we now have growing health care and tech industries. We have also become a destination for corporate and associa- tion headquarters. Combined with a strong housingmarket and a highly educated labor force, the Washington D.C. area is consistently among the top three markets in the United States in most of the categories of commercial real estate (Office space oc- cupancy, multi-family rental units, retail space, and sales of investment properties). So it is believed that there will be enough job creation and stability in the market- place to allow for demand of tens of thousands of apart- ments and 20 to 25 million s/f of office space over the next five years. This will further impact on our recovering and somewhat robust Retail seg- ment, which will keep the DC marketplace strong. Owners like Blake Real Es- tate, which is a third genera- tion family owned business, are fortunate enough to have a very low leveraged portfolio thereby allowing us to meet the market on office rents, and put improvements in place which will attract and retain tenants. In several of our properties we are reno- vating common areas and adding amenities such as fit-
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