Midtown One to go spec, amid competition

Bromley Cos. has announced that its first office offering in its planned $500 million Midtown Tampa project will be developed on a speculative basis — a move that puts it among increasingly growing competition in the Tampa area.

Midtown One will contain 140,000 square feet of space and rise seven stories, joining a planned Whole Foods Market, 400 apartments to be developed by Crescent Communities, a 225-room hotel and 240,000 square feet of retail space developed by Lakewood Ranch-based Casto Southeast Realty Services.

In all, the 22-acre site is slated to contain roughly 1.8 million square feet of space at build out in 2021, including a trio of office towers totaling 750,000 square feet.

Bromley has referred to the project as “Tampa’s first mixed-use urban development.”

Commercial real estate brokerage firm Cushman & Wakefield is marketing the office space on behalf of New York-based Bromley.

“Midtown will transform the office tenant and employee experience based on hospitality and services in ways that stand out among even the best Class A buildings in Tampa,” says Nicholas Haines, Bromley’s CEO, in a statement.

Midtown One will feature, for instance, a covered entry and a unique valet service for tenants when completed in 2020.

But Midtown faces considerable — and growing — competition among developers hoping to construct spec space and add product into a market that has been outpacing national job and population growth for the past five years.

At the same time, changing work habits, lender reluctance and a lack of necessary rent rate growth have led developers to hold off on new office projects.

Midtown One, in fact, is one of a half-dozen new projects that either are planned as speculative office developments or will contain significant, uncommitted office space.

In addition, Strategic Property Partners is planning to build 560,000 square feet of office space in a pair of new buildings within its $3 billion Water Street Tampa by 2021; Feldman Equities Ltd. and Tower Realty Partners are slated to include roughly 200,000 square feet within its 53-story Riverwalk Place; and MetLife will have about 100,000 square feet that is uncommitted in its MetWest III office tower, currently under construction.

As well, Vision Properties is preparing to move ahead with a 150,000-square-foot spec building in its 71-acre Renaissance Center; and the Tampa Airport Authority is slated to hire a developer to build roughly 100,000 square feet of spec space in its planned Gateway Development project, in 2022.

In all, roughly 1.3 million square feet of new, speculative office space is being readied for construction in the next year, according to real estate research firm Yardi Matrix.

For its part, Bromley is no stranger to office product.

In addition to the 60,000-square-foot Bromley Office Building in Tampa, the company also owns a pair of offices in its home state of New York.

Its 122 Fifth Ave. building, a 10-story structure with 235,000 square feet, is the global headquarters for book seller Barnes & Noble Inc., and is also occupied by children’s clothier Carters Inc.

At 120 Fifth Ave., Bromley’s 11-story, 70,000-square-foot building is occupied by Chanel, Keurig Green Mountain Coffee and Barnes & Noble.