Another Gap In Posting - Better Construction Activity in Gaston County

Once again a long gap has occurred in posting to the blog. Again it has been a good thing as it indicates increasing activity in the construction market and in leasing commercial spaces.

We still don't see the new buildings and expansions and I suspect that continues to reflect a tight lending environment. We do see maintenance, repairs and minor alterations to accomodate new machinery and processes in existing facilties.

I write this the day before Thanksgiving so happy holidays to all!

Not Posting For Almost 60 Days a Good Thing

Last post was August 14th, almost 60 days ago. A bad thing? Not really because we have been busy working the construction market here in Gaston County and in continuing to lease up our flex space complex.

As we thought on the last post our work still consists of industrial and commercial remodels, change of use projects and minor expansions to accomodate changes in machinery, automation, etc... ICM is doing almost all of this on a Construction Management basis. This is a great way to moniter costs and allow us to provide Code and Permitting expertise. We can easily set an appointment to discuss your project.

We have seen some good activity in the Gastonia small business market we focus on. Our Flex-Space Business Park now has only one unit left. The remaining unit is 3,000 Sf with office up fit, 200 amp 3 phase power, (2) overhead doors and a/c. Call or email to get more details.

We are still partners in some great properties at Exit 22 Lowell on I-85. Besides the obvious advantages of being on an Interchange of I-85 there is a lot of potential on this gateway to Southeast Gastonia Residential and the Regional Shopping Hub anchored by Franklin Square. Call us to inquire.

We appreciate all our clients, past, present and future.

Summertime And Vacations Meant A Pause In Posting Commercial Real Estate News in Gaston County

Seems like I took a week off in July but couple in the July 4th Holidays and vacations by clients and a lot of calendar has run off since I posted last.

Have only (2) Units in the 2T Complex for rent. A 1,500 Sf Unit - 4488 Posterity Court and a  3,000 Sf Unit - 4479/4481 Posterity Court. Call/Text/Email for Details.

Construction continues to be commercial and industrial remodels or expansions. Seems like there is a tooling up and repositioning for economic growth. ICM continues success with the Construction Management Contracts. Seems Clients like the control they keep and the supervision they release to us. Contact me and I can explain how ICM offers three levels of service.

We are here in Gaston County and ready to offer the Real Estate, Development and Construction Services you might need.

RENTAL UPDATE - Flex Space Gastonia

Unit 4486 has been leased and is no longer available.

Flex Space Listings - Gastonia

I was looking over the posts here for 2014. Some politics, some construction and some development. Missing was a core reason for the Blog, Rental Space Listings.

As of today June 9th, 2014 I have following available spaces.

4479/4481 Posterity Court
3,000 Sf Double Unit
Full Heat and A/C
3 Phase Power
(2) Ground Level OH Doors

4486 Posterity Court ....................... 4488 Posterity Court
1,500 Sf Unit ......................................... 1,500 Sf Unit
Full Heat and A/C  ................................ 300 Sf Office A/C
3 Phase Power ....................................... 1,200 Sf Storage/Work
Ground Level OH Door ........................ Ground Level OH Door

All leases include Property Tax, Water, Sewer, Storm Water Fee, Trash, & Exterior Maintenance

We have been developing and leasing flex space since 1999. Give us a call, text or email.

ICM Continues Expansion of Construction Management Services

Last year we began to place an emphsis on Construction Management. ICM did CM on a remodel to suit and move-in relocation of over $600,000 for a company relocating to Gaston County. This spring ICM has followed up with CM for distribution system technology upgrade of over $3.8 million dollars for new racking with automated picking and packaging system at another Gaston County industry.

Our CM proposals allow as little or as much financial involvement as you desire. We manage the construction scheduling and supervision with back-up reporting on subcontractor progress and payment processing to aid in your administering those contracts.

If you would like details on how we work for you to acheive your project goals while maintaining as much or as little financial involvement as you need for comfort and accountability contact us.

We are your Project Manager and available on a Project by Project basis. In North Carolina we are Unlimited Contractors in the Classifications of Building, Highway and Water/Sewer Utility Lines.

Is Gastonia Ready For Dynamic Pricing of Commercial Properties?

There was a recent article in the Charlotte Observer, Link to Article ,  about dynamic pricing for apartments. To back track quickly, airlines use dynamic pricing to price passenger tickets. Therefore you may pay a few hundred dollars to fly to New York and the passenger in the next seat might have paid a thousand dollars based on when they purchased the ticket.

As a commercial landlord I read this article with interest but I could not overcome my aversion to pricing my commercial units on this model. Oh, they have the right, until rent controls, to price this way but is it right to do it? This is pricing for obtaining the highest price the Buyer will tolerate. This model seems to create its own opposition by creating dissatisfaction among the Tenants. Potentially causing a political reaction for rent control and surely creating turn over at almost every lease renewal.

Given the Value Proposition I believe to be inherent in any business transaction. Value=Price/Quality I cannot see pricing our units via this Dynamic Method. I do not want to have a building where duplicate 1,500 Sf units might rent for several hundred dollars differential.

That said rents differ due to feature and amenity differences. Increasing costs like, property taxes, insurance, maintenance, waste services and water/sewer cause price increases cause rents to rise. However our rents will always be based on the Value Proposition of a quality space at a price fair to both the needs to the Tenant and Landlord.

Contact me to obtain information on the 1,500 Sf or 3,000 Sf units currently available.

Why The Economy Continues To Struggle

Small Business and conversly those of us serving small business with rental spaces and construction services are still struggling to recover from 2008. Two recent articles point to some very real causes of the slow recovery.

First:

According to a report released Monday by the Tax Foundation, this year Tax Freedom Day falls 111 days into 2014, on April 21.

By April 21, to group says, Americans will have made enough to pay the $3 trillion in federal taxes and $1.5 trillion in state taxes — more than they will spend on food clothing and housing combined.

This does not take into account sales taxes, property taxes, excise taxes and a whole host of user fees and taxes.

Second:

The number of Americans who were enrolled in Medicaid at any time during fiscal 2013 exceeded the entire population of the United Kingdom, according to new data published by the federal government’s Medicaid and CHIP Payment Access Commission (MACPAC).

Were Medicaid a nation instead of a U.S. entitlement program it would be the 20th most populous country on earth.

This does not account for all the regulations, rules, etc.. being made everyday about taxes, the evironment, health care, work place safety, etc... In 2013 in the short work week because of the Veterans Day holiday, agencies added nearly 1,700 pages to the 2013 Federal Register making the yearly total 68,313 pages. That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 33 minutes.

When taxes exceed spending on basics like food/clothing/housing combined I think we can all agree it is an unsustainable burden. Can we provide free health care to the 20th most populous nation in the world? When new regulations occur every 2 hours and 33 minutes I think we can see too much intervention by government.What are we as Americans to do?

A History Lesson for The Leaders of Gaston County -Kelo v. City of New London (2005)

As we enter a time of Property Revaluation and Preliminary Budgets here is a cautionary note on Grand Plans to solve shortfalls.

In 2005 the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to uphold a Connecticut Supreme Court ruling that the city of New London and a nonprofit quasi-public entity that the city had set up, New London Development Corporation (NLDC), were entitled to seize by eminent domain,  homes and businesses from their property owners in the name of economic development that would generate new jobs and increased tax revenue.

The ruling said the City and the NLDC were entitled to condemn, seize and then bulldoze people’s homes for the sole purpose to have something else built on the land that would produce higher property taxes​. Office buildings, luxury condos, five-star hotel, spacious conference center, a “river walk” to a brand-new marina, and high-end retail stores were part of an elaborate “economic development” plan the NLDC had launched in 1997.

The Constitution’s Fifth Amendment bars governments from taking private property unless the taking is for a “public use.” Historically courts had interpreted “public use”  as a road, a bridge, a public school, or some other government structure. But in Kelo the Court majority ruled “economic development” that would involve using eminent domain to transfer the property of one private owner to a different but more economically ambitious private owner​​qualified as a public use.

The nationwide outrage that followed the Kelo decision was across the political spectrum. More than 40 state legislatures passed laws that banned or restricted the use of eminent domain for the purpose of economic rejuvenation, especially when it meant displacing homeowners. Seven states amended their constitutions to ban the use of eminent domain for economic development, and some state courts explicitly rejected the Kelo ruling as precedent for interpreting those states’ own taking laws.

The Kelo decision inspired political mass confusion. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean declared in 2005 that the Kelo ruling had been all the fault of President George W. Bush. “The president and his right-wing Supreme Court think it is ‘okay’ to have the government take your house if they feel like putting a hotel where your house is,” Dean announced at a college rally.

In fact, the Supreme Court’s conservative bloc​—​the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, the now-retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas,none of whom was a Bush appointee, had dissented from the majority opinion. The High Court’s liberal faction​ of ​Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and David Souter​ along with swing-voter Anthony Kennedy formed the narrow majority. O’Connor’s dissenting opinion was particularly scathing. “Today the Court abandons the Fifth Amendment’s long-held basic limitation on government power,” she wrote. “Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded, i.e., given to an owner who will use it in a way that the legislature deems more beneficial to the public​—​in the process.”
Kelo evolved from a 1954 decision, Berman v. Parker where the Court ruled unanimously, in an opinion written by William O. Douglas, perhaps the most liberal justice ever to sit on the Supreme Court, to uphold the power of a redevelopment agency created by Congress to seize and demolish almost the entire Southwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., on the ground that it was a “blighted area” and “blighted areas .  .  . tend to produce slums.” Blight removal was a “public use,” according to Douglas​. From there it was only a short step to economic development as a public use.

Eminent domain in the name of economic development ought to be dead, but it is in fact alive and well. In 2006, a year after Kelo, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled the Atlantic Yards Project, a massive mixed commercial/residential/recreational use project, including 16 high-rise buildings, for 22 acres in Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights. The city used eminent domain to demolish well-maintained condominiums over the protests of their residents. Thanks to the real estate collapse, ground was not broken until 2012, and large portions of the project may never be built. In California, a ballot initiative and a pending bill in the state senate​ ​would broaden the definition of “blight” for eminent domain purposes and revive in altered form the state’s local redevelopment agencies, which used to receive up to 12 percent of state tax revenues until California governor Jerry Brown abolished them in 2011. The redevelopment agencies were notorious for their failure to generate actual economic improvement.

The Berman and Kelo rulings affirmed a particular kind of liberal vision: that large-scale and intricate government plans trump individuals’ property rights.

How To Save Money Leasing Fex Space in Gastonia

Please don’t lease until you carefully review the difference in our lease terms and the triple net lease terms of others.

Many times a low rent is quoted at triple net leasing terms. Triple net means that fees for property taxes, insurance, dumpster, storm water fees and common area maintenance are added to the rent. This could add 30% to the quoted rent. In addition the costs of all maintenance are the tenants’ responsibility.

Our lease terms are called modified gross. Our rents include property taxes, building insurance, water, sewer, dumpster, storm water fees and common area maintenance. Tenants are responsible for taxes on their real property, “Renters” insurance on their contents and liability coverage in case of damage to others in the building and interior maintenance like lighting bulbs and ballasts, HVAC filters, toilet and sink repairs.

We have been doing commercial leasing for flex spaces this way since 1999.The benefit of our lease terms start with simplified accountability. Your facility costs are rent, renters insurance and utilities.

Currently in our Business Park we have a limited number of 1,500, 3,000 Sf units and only (1) 3,500 Sf unit. Each is unique in floor plan layout. Some are 100% air conditioned in offices and work areas. Some have a/c in office only. All are heated. Some have 3-phase power and all have 200 amp services. All have front glass entry doors and rear ground level overhead doors at least 10x10.

PLEASE call or email me so we can discuss what you need and I can send you details on the unit that best fits you and your business. Don’t lease elsewhere and then read it after you signed to find out the true cost.

 Jerry Fleeman - Construction-Real Estate-Development

 

PS.  We have a month to month lease option on approved credit. No long term lease obligation.