Butters Announces Plans For Two New Projects

Malcolm Butters is ready to start building speculative office buildings again and he sees plenty of opportunities for commercial real estate investment in South Florida, if you know where to look.
The CEO of Coconut Creek-based Butters Construction and Development and a three-time winner of the “Developer of the Year” award from NAIOP’s South Florida chapter recentlyspoke at a networking event for real estate professionals.
Butters announced plans to build a second phase for Boca Village Corporate Center, along Yamato Road just west of Interstate 95. He developed the first phase in 2008 and sold it a few years later. Butters said he would construct a speculative office building of about 120,000 square feet on the 4-acre site. He hopes to break ground by the end of 2015, pending city approval.
 

“There haven’ t been many speculative office buildings the last four or five years,” Butters said. “You will see more and more of that. Office is the sleeper this year. The new, good office buildings are 95 percent leased.”

Butters also plans to construct a built-to-suit store for furniture retailer Clive Daniel, he said. The 65,000-square-foot building would be on a 3-acre site at Northwest Second Avenue and Glades Road. He hopes to break ground before the end of 2015.
Butters noted that the institutional investors and Wall Street firms are aggressively chasing prime commercial properties in South Florida and offering cap rates that most local investors won’t accept. Instead of bidding against them, he suggests to pass on the “Class A” properties and go after the “Class B or C” properties. Another option he suggested is to piggyback on their deals. Butters said most institutional investors don’t have the skill set to develop property so local developers can form partnerships with them to handle the building and permitting.
Butters Construction and Development was the local partner of KTR Capital Partners on the 300,000-square-foot distribution center built for Amazon.com in Doral in 2014. Butters sold the property to KTR after securing development approvals and Butters said he partnered with the firm on the build-out. He said the key for Amazon.com was delivering a building with a 36-foot clear height, among the highest for a local warehouse.
 
Source:  SFBJ

————————-

Get the latest industry news and information from CRE-sources delivered right to your email inbox! And we promise…no more than one email each morning. Just follow the instructions below.

Enter your email address: