• 192nd Station is the only new multitenant retail construction planned for 2012 in Clark County.
• No new multitenant industrial or class A office properties will be built, for the third consecutive year.
• With business expansions on hold, industrial and commercial land sales will remain slow.
The economy may have hit bottom, but there are very few signs that Clark County has experienced positive growth over the last year.
Most businesses are still very cautious about borrowing or spending any capital to expand or hire new full-time employees. Based upon the uncertainties of the global economy and stalled leadership in the United States, I do not have a very positive outlook about business expansion and job growth during the next 12 months.
Retail market
While there continue to be success stories in Clark County, with business expansions including PeaceHealth, Fisher Investments and Farwest Steel, the persistent 12 percent unemployment rate keeps a damper on retail sales for the immediate future. (And some people estimate the jobless rate is actually more than 18 percent, if you include the underemployed and those whose unemployment benefits have expired.)
• 192nd Station is the only new multitenant retail construction planned for 2012 in Clark County.
• No new multitenant industrial or class A office properties will be built, for the third consecutive year.
• With business expansions on hold, industrial and commercial land sales will remain slow.
The multitenant retail market ended 2011 with an estimated vacancy rate of 8.5 percent, which is slightly better than 2010’s 9 percent. More than 750,000 square feet remains vacant and available for immediate lease, however. The 35,000-square-foot 192nd Station is the only new multitenant retail construction planed for 2012.
Significant transactions in the past year included New Seasons Market (40,000 square feet), O’Reilly Auto Parts (7,200 square feet), Planet Fitness (24,000 square feet) and Miller Paint (6,700 square feet).
Industrial market
Industrial multitenant properties will end the year with over 15 percent vacancy — slightly higher than last year — with over 1.1 million square feet available for immediate lease. There is no new multitenant industrial warehouse construction planned in 2012, for the third consecutive year.
Significant transactions in 2011 included Maletis Beverage (58,000 square feet), Pacific Coast Shredding (39,000 square feet) and SAPA (142,000 square feet).
Office market
In multitenant buildings, the highest quality office space, class A, ended the year at an estimated 18 percent vacancy rate, with more than 1 million square feet available for immediate lease. That’s slightly better than last year’s 19 percent vacancy rate.
Tenants are trading buildings, but there are few new arrivals.
No new multitenant class A office buildings will start construction in 2012, for the third consecutive year.
Significant transactions in 2011 included PeaceHealth (160,000 square feet), Hewlett-Packard (110,000 square feet) and Lionbridge (34,000 square feet) all leasing the former Nautilus building, and StairMaster (26,000 square feet). Fisher Investments also moved into its newly constructed 110,000-square-foot class A building in Camas.
Investment sales
The national market for real estate investment recovered from the last year’s low. Most transactions occurred in major cities with top-of-the-class properties.
Clark County’s market ended 2011 with less than $75 million in investment sales, a 4 percent increase from 2010 by total spending.
Significant transactions last year included the $11 million sale of Padden Market Center and Living Hope Church’s $5 million purchase of a former Kmart building. Together, those two totaled 21 percent of all sales. The investment market will continue to be slow due to the gap of values between sellers and buyers.
Land sales
In 2011, commercial and industrial land sales totaled $16 million, down 60 percent from the prior year.
Significant transactions for the year included Far West Steel’s $5 million purchase of 20 acres from the Port of Vancouver, which represented more than 31 percent of the all land-sale spending in the year.
I expect that 2012 will be another very slow year in industrial and commercial land sales, as business expansion is on hold.
