Orlando’s office market continues to reshape miles from the core downtown business district.

Moves such as tech company HostDime building space in Eatonville and Duke Energy buying space in Lake Mary further underscore the growing demand for office outside the traditional center of finance and business.  

The top Central Florida office leases and sales last year were primarily in the suburbs, according to a fourth-quarter report by Cushman & Wakefield. Top sales included: 

And HostDime’s plans are for a seven-story data center near Interstate 4 north of Orlando.

The region’s overall office-vacancy rate was 12.2 percent during the fourth quarter — the lowest since prior to the recession, according to the report. In downtown Orlando, office vacancies dropped to about 10 percent in the last quarter — about half the rate during the bottom of the market in about 2012.

Despite the limited options for office space, rents have stagnated, with average per-foot asking rents of $22.57 in the suburbs and $26.71 downtown during the fourth quarter.

“Even with lower vacancy, rental rates for the Orlando market did not change significantly over the past year,” said Kathleen Krilanovich, who researches the Orlando market for Cushman & Wakefield.

The Orlando area has relatively little office speculative office space underway — about 134,000 square feet.

One reason downtown Orlando hasn’t landed many big-name companies is due to its current shortage of relatively large blocks of office space, said Chris Owen, who oversees research for Cushman & Wakefield for Florida.

“We are getting crossed of the list with some potential new moves to this market because we don’t have any space ready to go,” he said. 

Jacksonville saw the largest pop in rents over the past year while other markets in Florida, besides Orlando, all had rents above pre-recession levels. In fact, most other markets had healthy year-over-year gains, Owen said.

mshanklin@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5538

The department store operator said it would offer early retirement for about 6,000 workers. (Feb. 24, 2017)

The department store operator said it would offer early retirement for about 6,000 workers. (Feb. 24, 2017)

The department store operator said it would offer early retirement for about 6,000 workers. (Feb. 24, 2017)

The department store operator said it would offer early retirement for about 6,000 workers. (Feb. 24, 2017)

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Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.