Raoul Thomas: Miami’s suburban office markets will thrive after COVID
with conference rooms as needed. That’s why we’re promoting ourselves as a private office space. This will be a permanent change even after the pandemic. More corporations are going to offer employees those type of private suites. We’re already seeing it in China. We want to get ahead of the curve.
We are looking to expand on our proprietary technological capability by delivering more services to our tenants’ desk, affording them the ability not to need to leave the office for particular desirable services. This will incrementally drive the increases in demand for us as the owner and operator, as we continue to be pioneers with our technology.
We also see an influx of Northeasterners. That will be to our benefit in terms of office demand.
I am bullish and am in the market to buy. Give me Coconut Grove and Coral Gables; not downtown and Brickell. There were major traffic concerns even before the pandemic in downtown and Brickell. But look at the Grove revamping itself with CocoWalk, and look at where all of the private schools are. People are going to want to be closer to home.
We also seek to acquire high-quality assets in affluent suburban neighborhoods. We are under contract for two properties in the Naples and Fort Myers area.
These markets give us a demographic that is appealing and stronger in our belief. These markets have highly educated people that lead small to medium-sized businesses, as well as a high number of individuals with graduate and postgraduate degrees, including professional certifications. We believe this gives us a stronger individual tenant in these suburban offerings and, as a result, a stronger tenant mix.
For the tenant, the cost is a small fraction of their actual income, so we are less impacted than traditional office settings that are much more costly for the tenant, as Nexus Workspaces are more affordable and smaller.
In the short term, both traditional and flexible offices may feel some repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic, testing the abilities of noncredit tenants to support their monthly rental payment. But we do not think that working from home will be sustainable in the longterm, particularly when it comes to individuals with families, along with the potential of efficiency levels dropping while working from home. Therefore, we believe that corporations will exhibit increased demand for satellite offices, providing their employees with the option of working from flexible work spaces closer to their homes.
We will seek opportunities in the coming months,