Stirling Properties Announces Recent Transactions in Mobile, Alabama
Welcomes new tenants to Bel Air Office Tower
Stirling Properties commercial real estate company announces two new tenants and one renewal at Bel Air Office Tower in Mobile, Alabama.
- Alabama Department of Revenue, occupying 26,030 square feet for a 15-year lease term, with anticipated opening date in summer of 2016.
- Bankers Life and Casualty Co., offering life insurance and retirement planning services, will occupy 4,399 square feet for a 5-year lease term and is expected to open in March 2016.
- Walker Jewelers, a fine jewelry retailer occupying 1,722 square feet, has renewed its lease for a 3-year term.
Bel Air Office Tower is located at 851 I-65 Service Road in Mobile, Alabama. Stirling Properties worked on behalf of the owner in cooperation with Cushman & Wakefield/EGS Commercial Real Estate for all of the listed transactions. For more information, please contact Jason Scott, Senior Sales and Leasing Executive with Stirling Properties in Mobile.
Stirling Properties is located in One St. Louis Centre, 1 St. Louis Street, Suite 4100 in Mobile. For more information regarding our services, please visit us at www.stirlingproperties.com.
2015: What a year for Mobile
With all the various ranking and awards Alabama received throughout 2015, it’s no surprise Mobile, Alabama had an amazing year!
As Stirling Properties’ Vice President & Regional Manager for Alabama/Florida, a member of the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Chamber’s Board of Advisors, I was thrilled with all that Mobile accomplished this past year. Here are just a few of the more notable moments from 2015.
Airbus’s U.S. Manufacturing Facility at Mobile Aeroplex opened its first U.S. manufacturing facility on September 14, 2015. By 2018, the facility will produce between 40 and 50 single-aisle aircrafts per year.
GulfQuest National Maritime Museum of the Gulf of Mexico opened on September 26, 2015 and provided a huge impact to the area’s tourism economy.
The Alabama Department of Transportation awarded the I-10 Mobile River Bridge design/engineering contract to Thompson Engineering. This will increase the capacity of I-10 and meet the existing and predicted future traffic volumes.
The Manufacturing Communities Grant was implemented and Mobile was named one of only 12 federally-designated manufacturing communities in 2015. Over the past 5 years, manufacturing jobs in Mobile have increased by 38%, with a 22.9% increase in manufacturing wages.
1702, a group of chief executive officers and business leaders, was established to create an entrepreneurial community that showcases Mobile as one of the best cities for groundbreaking companies. The St. Louis street innovative corridor for tech savvy startups is becoming a reality.
The city executed a 13 month contract for the return of Carnival Cruise Lines starting in November 2016. This promises a huge economic impact to the city.
Mobile Chamber of Commerce surveyed their Partners for Growth Investors. The results showed that between January 2014 and June 2015 2,148 new jobs were created and during that time $936 million was invested in capital.
Stirling Properties is committed to serving Alabama and the Gulf South and we are proud to be one of Mobile’s top commercial real estate firms. We are excited about the great things to come in 2016 to Mobile!
Mobile Office Market Survey
John Toomey III, CPM® is a Broker and Mobile New Business Development Coordinator in our Mobile, Alabama, office with over 30 years’ experience in the commercial real estate industry. He recently completed an Office Market Survey of the West Mobile and Mobile CBD markets, with plans to periodically update the survey to track trends and establish absorption rates.
Here’s an excerpt from John’s Market Assessment:
Our office market has seen challenging times the last five years. Some buildings have fared better than others in terms of occupancy. The good news is while the Mobile Office Market vacancy rate has been relatively stagnant, it has recently started to improve. The Downtown Mobile Alliance and the City of Mobile were successful in creating a statewide Historic Tax Credit in October 2013. After going into effect, this tax credit has been instrumental in spurring office redevelopment. Many historic, but vacant, buildings were revitalized using these tax credits and put back into commerce. One such example is the RSA Van Antwerp Building located in the CBD. This roughly 60,000 SF building has taken over 2 years to renovate and will open summer of 2015 with Phelps Dunbar and BBVA Compass Bank occupying most of the building, essentially pre-leasing nearly the entire building before it comes online.
We have seen a fair amount of leasing activity in our office market the last 12 to 18 months. Unfortunately, a lot of space was subleased, which does not have the desired effect on our rental rates and absorption rates. The Trustmark sublease at RSA Trustmark Building is an example. Newly restored buildings like RSA Van Antwerp Building add more inventory to the market. It is a positive step to see these buildings restored, but it remains to be seen how this will affect future rental and absorption rates.
In summary, we expect the office market to see leisurely positive growth in the future.
Please click here to view and download the PDF of the Mobile Office Market Survey. This survey provides a good summary of the Mobile office market and my hope is that it becomes a valuable resource in the market.
Stirling Properties Announces Latest Investment Sale in Mobile, Alabama
Stirling Properties’ agents Justin Toomey and Andrew Dickman recently completed the sale of a 100,000 square-foot United States Postal Service facility in Mobile, Alabama. The industrial distribution warehouse, located at 4538 Shipyard Road, was sold for $3.1 Million on Friday, July 31, 2015. Justin and Andrew represented the seller, Alabama Gulfstar, LLC and a local Mobile based investor group with the acquisition.
For more information regarding investment sales, leasing opportunities or any of your real estate needs contact Stirling Properties at 251-375-2495 or visit www.stirlingproperties.com.
Stirling Properties Ranks Among Top 10 Commercial Real Estate Firms in Alabama
Business Alabama recently published their 2015 Top Rank issue and I am happy to report that just a year and a half after opening our first office in Mobile, Alabama, Stirling Properties is ranked among the Top 10 Commercial Real Estate Firms in the State of Alabama.
Since establishing our Mobile office in October 2013, we have worked tirelessly to expand our presence throughout Alabama and eastward into the Florida market. Here are a few highlights:
- CEO Marty Mayer delivered last year’s ACREcon keynote address, introducing Stirling Properties and highlighting the rise of the Gulf Coast.
- We acquired John Toomey & Company, Inc., a commercial real estate company in Mobile with over 20 years’ experience, integrating 1.8 million square feet into our existing managed and leased portfolio.
- Just last month, we relocated our Mobile office into a larger 5,100 square-foot space at One St. Louis Centre in downtown Mobile, a building we also manage and lease.
- At the end of 2014, we opened a new office in Pensacola, Florida, in SunTrust Tower, an office building we also manage and lease.
- In the beginning of this month, we were awarded a contract for leasing and property management of Santa Rosa Mall in Mary Esther/Fort Walton Beach, Florida.
We now total over 2.5 million square-feet of managed properties and 34 employees/brokers in Alabama and Florida – in just a year and a half. I am extremely proud of our latest Alabama ranking and, most importantly, what the Stirling Team has accomplished in the Alabama and Florida markets over this short time frame. We are strongly committed to serving the entire Gulf South and look forward to serving our clients throughout Alabama and Florida from our Mobile, Pensacola and Mary Esther/Fort Walton Beach offices.
Stay tuned for another exciting announcement in the next few weeks!
Stirling Properties Welcomes Andrew Dickman to its Mobile, AL Team
Stirling Properties is pleased to announce the addition of Andrew Dickman to the Commercial Brokerage Division as Sales and Leasing Executive. Andrew will work from the company’s Mobile, Alabama office located at 1 St. Louis Street, Suite 4100.
Andrew’s expertise and experience include development and brokerage of raw land, site selection and site analysis for national retailers and restaurant chains, marketing and disposition of existing or dark national retail and restaurant sites, Landlord and Tenant representation for big box retailers and small shop tenants and commercial real estate portfolio sales.
Andrew is a CCIM candidate and a graduate of Indiana State University. He can be reached at 251-375-2483 or andrewdickman@stirlingprop.com.
