Geis JV Completes Fort Myers Industrial Campus

July 12, 2024

Three of the property's four buildings are fully leased.

Properties at Parallel Drive, Fort Myers, Fla. — The four-building campus is 70 already percent leased. *Image courtesy of The Geis Development*

A joint venture between Geis Cos. subsidiary The Geis Development and Westminster Capital has delivered Meridian Business Park, a four-building, 208,000-square-foot distribution center in Fort Myers, Fla. The developers broke ground on the project in 2022.

Built on a 5.4-acre site, Meridian Business Park comprises a 75,000-square-foot building and a 60,000-square-foot one, as well as two 35,000-square-foot facilities. Each building has a 21-foot clear height. The campus also features ESFR sprinklers, as well as a total of 19 drive-in doors and 544 parking spaces.

The industrial complex is already 70 percent leased, with three of the four facilities being fully leased. Some of the tenants include Frigid Rigid, Lehman Pipe & Plumbing, LiquiGlide and Concentra, as well as American Products Distributors, to name a few.

Located at 16101, 16140, 16200 and 16251 Parallel Drive, Meridian Business Park is less than 3 miles from Interstate 75 and 4 miles from the Southwest Florida International Airport, while the Fort Myers Beach Port is roughly 17 miles southwest.

The location is also 3 miles from the 482,000-square-foot Highland Commerce Center of Fort Myers, an industrial property that came online just last month. The speculative project faced a set of peculiar challenges, including Hurricane Ian and bald eagles nesting at the site.

Southwest Florida Coast’s industrial vacancy on the rise

The Southwest Florida Coast’s industrial pipeline had some 400,000 square feet of under-construction space in the first quarter of this year, as reported by Cushman & Wakefield. Meanwhile, absorption dropped over the quarter from 1.8 million square feet at the end of 2023 to just 135,000 square feet.

Following national trends, the region’s vacancy rate grew by 220 basis points year-over-year in March, landing at 2.8 percent. However, the index remained way below the national average of 5.8 percent, according to the same report.