Real estate developers in the Northeast are bored with the back seat. And some see an upcoming summit to put brokers, builders and bankers on the same page as the signal that they don't have to sit there any more.
“For the longest time, Northeastern Pennsylvania would take a back seat to the Lehigh Valley, Harrisburg, Carlisle,” said Jim Cummings, vice president of marketing with Mericle Commercial Real Estate Services. “Brokers, when they were running deals with clients, tended to forget Northeastern Pennsylvania. That's no longer the case. We've become a very credible market.”
Cummings will join a panel discussion during the first Northeastern Pennsylvania Real Estate Summit, scheduled for Friday, June 8, at the Woodlands Inn & Resort in Plains Twp.
Summit talks will zero in on industrial, office and downtown markets.
The summit, produced by Penn's Northeast, a collaborative created to draw major employers to the region, imitates similar all-day events in competing markets where commercial land is increasingly scarce and more expensive.
“The goal of this event is really to educate any of those third-party users, from the bankers to the accountants to the construction trades,” said John Augustine, president at Penn's Northeast. “We are going to be building many million square feet more in the next few years. … We want folks to know what's coming.”
Premium office space vacancy in Lackawanna, Luzerne and Schuylkill counties shrank one-tenth of a point to 6.2 percent in the 2017's fourth quarter, according to Colliers International, one of the world's largest real estate service firms.
It calls vacancy rates “critically low” in its 2017 fourth-quarter analysis, and that's with national vacancy at 12 percent, nearly double that of the northeast region.
The last decade or so has witnessed a surge in new development, with shipping and medical companies filling out growing business parks at a healthy clip.
The trend caught the attention of John Susanin, a Colliers senior vice president of brokerage, about two years ago when he started studying the region's premium office space inventory.
Susanin, who will join other speakers at the summit, said he believes the region is underserved with professional real estate services.
“So there's really an opportunity to bring institutional-level work to the area, and we're very bullish on it,” he said.
Summits such as this one can help sell a region to newcomers, but mostly they help build excitement among regional industry leaders, and craft a cohesive message, which, Cummings said, hasn't always been the case here.
“You had individuals and organizations who weren't singing from the same song sheet,” he said. “Hopefully, the people who attend will leave feeling better about the area than they did before they walked in the door, and when speaking to their business associates, both locally and out of town, they'll say the right things.”
If you go:
What: Inaugural Northeastern Pennsylvania Real Estate Summit
When: Friday, June 8, registration begins at 7:30 a.m.
WHERE: The Woodlands Inn & Resort, Plains Twp.
Admission: Tickets cost $45. Visit www.pennsnortheast.com for information and to buy tickets.
Contact the writer:
joconnell@timesshamrock.com; 570-348-9131;
@jon_oc on Twitter
http://citizensvoice.com/news/inaugural-real-estate-summit-signals-strengthening-commercial-market-1.2339323
