Work Begins on 1 MSF Tampa Spec Industrial Project

CenterState Logistics Park East. Image courtesy of Brennan Investment Group

The development of CenterState Logistics Park East gets underway in Lakeland, Fla., as Brennan Investment Group and Grandview Partners commence construction of the Tampa-area project‘s first phase, the 1 million-square-foot Building 400.

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Carrying the address of 8565 State Road 33, the centrally located CenterState Logistics Park East sits roughly 40 miles East of Tampa and approximately 50 miles from Orlando, allowing for same-day delivery throughout the Sunshine State. Brennan began laying the groundwork for the logistics park in the fourth quarter of 2019, with the purchase of 165 acres of land adjacent to Florida Polytechnic University, along the bustling Interstate-4 corridor in Polk County.

CenterState Logistics Park East. Image courtesy of Brennan Investment Group

“Supported by geography, economic and demographic shifts, the I-4 corridor has evolved into a distribution corridor serving the distribution and manufacturing needs of Florida and increasingly, the southeastern U.S.,” Edward Miller, executive managing director for Colliers International, told Commercial Property Executive.

Colliers, which managed the 2019 land sale to Brennan, is serving as exclusive leasing agent for CenterState East. “This process is due to a number of factors: maturing e-commerce, tourism, growth of consumer markets and access to transportation infrastructure are a few,” Miller added. “It is best summarized as the next phase in Florida’s growth. Our project was chosen to be at or near the geographic center of this pathway.”

Building 400 will ultimately be joined by two other facilities at CenterState East—the 364,000-square-foot Building 500 and the 140,000-square-foot Building 600—for a total of approximately 1.5 million square feet of industrial offerings.   

All the right numbers

Brennan asserts that CenterState East’s Building 400 is the largest speculative industrial development to enter the Central Florida market to date. Despite the economic uncertainty spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, numbers indicate that Building 400 will find a warm reception in the Tamp Bay-area market. According to a second quarter 2020 report by Colliers, “Although the true long-term impacts of COVID-19 across the broader economy remain unknown, the local industrial market in Tampa Bay remained poised for growth.”

The Tampa Bay industrial market recorded more than 1.8 million square feet of positive net absorption in the second quarter, marking nearly 10 consecutive years of positive quarterly net absorption throughout the metro area. Polk County played a large role in maintaining the encouraging statistics, having logged in excess of 900,000 square feet of positive absorption year-to-date.

CenterState East’s Building 400 is on schedule to deliver in the first quarter of 2021. In addition to welcoming market conditions, Brennan’s track record in Polk County indicates likely success for the project. Brennan and Grandview developed neighboring CenterState Logistics Park West as a speculative project and leased the approximately 605,400-square-foot property in advance of its 2017 completion before selling it the following year for $59.6 million.