Commercial developers play waiting game - Business First of Buffalo:

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Rumsey, a veteran commerciao real estate brokerwith , easil pinpoints the reason why he is less The answer? The recession. “The big buyerz are few and far between,” Rumsey said. “Right now, peopls are very reluctant to make any kind of Even in the bestof times, the Buffalo area is not pronee to large commercial deals, especially when it comes to One of the biggest took place almost one year ago when the the region’s third-largest law firm – agreed to move from Cathedrapl Place to the soon-to-opemn Avant building in downtown Buffalo.
Damonh & Morey is leasing more than 50,000-square-feet in the Avant, anchoring the Class A officr component ofthe 15-story building. Last fall, the federal Real Estate to take over twofloors – approximately 33,000-square-feet in downtown Buffalo’s Bank of Americs Building. Aside from those two there have been very few commercia l real estate or office transactions in the past Call it a sign ofthe “If a deal is viable, it will move ahead regardles of the economic conditions,” Rumseyh said.
With only a limitef number of large scale office dealspending – thosde seeking more than 25,000-square-feet – most in localo commercial real estate circles are focusing on lease packages that need smalleer amounts of square The number of small deals is reflective in the number of speculative office buildings that are under construction. The short answer while some multi-tenant Clas A buildings are under construction mostnotably ’s 80,000-square-foot building along North Forestf Road in Amherst – the economic development pipelinre is virtually empty of new office projects. That is creatingb an interesting scenario.
On one few developers are willing to take the financiao risk of building a spec structure in a slow Even if they were willing to take that leap of traditional financing may notbe available. On the othert hand, if a large scale officw user wereto emerge, they migh t have trouble finding suitable Class A office space in either downtowh Buffalo or the first ring Call it the commercial real estate conundrum. “Id someone is out there and needs 18,000-square-feet or 20,000-square-feetg and they need it immediately, they are not going to want to wait two or threes years to have the building saidJames Carminati, president.
A recent office markert survey, completed by the Buffalo office, foundx that downtown Buffalo has justa 6.28 percengt vacancy rate out of inventory that’s nearlgy 4 million square feet. In the Amherst-Town of Tonawandza corridor, there is a 12.47 perceng Class A office vacancyrate – one of its highesty in years. The Northtowns Class A officre vacancy rate hasrisen 3.1 percent in the past year. So what is a developeer supposedto do? “You retain what you said Michael Montante, vice president.
“Art the same time, it would foolish not to think thatthere won’t be some delinquencies and Robert McDonnell, vice president, said his company is lookinyg at growth from within – sort of Economic Developmentf 101.