Monday, Feb. 02, 2009

Industry: Space opens up, brightening prospects for growth

There was a glimmer of good news last year even as a diesel engine shop and an electrical parts warehouse announced they would shut down operations in Northeast Richland.

The moves will open up 350,000- and 200,000-square-foot buildings for prospects in a town that was losing interest from industrial prospects because it had little empty space for them to consider.

The vacancy rate for industrial buildings in Columbia was one of the tightest in the country in 2007 at 2.4 percent. With nothing to show, the area was being knocked off prospects’ lists practically before it was ever considered as a place to bring new industry and new jobs.

“Most site selections start with existing buildings,” said Chuck Salley, a commercial real estate broker with Colliers Keenan.

Companies look for vacant buildings similar in size to what they need. And while they often choose to build their own facilities anyway, the empty building is almost a prerequisite for consideration.

“If you don’t have that size, you get cut automatically,” Salley said. “Your community doesn’t get a look.”

That means jobs and tax dollars often go to other states or other communities.

With more empty buildings on the market, including a new 184,000-square-foot speculative building, Northeast Richland has a better chance of getting back on the lists of many prospects. The vacancy rate at the end of 2008 was close to 7 percent for Columbia and for Northeast Richland.

“Northeast is poised for growth in the next couple of years,” said Beverly Frost, a commercial real estate broker with C.B. Richard Ellis.

She said both the I-77 and I-20 corridors that border Northeast Richland are highly visible with lots of traffic. And some smaller buildings and tracts in between the two major arteries, at places like Spears Creek Church Road and Legrand Road, are prime area for development.

Of course, most of the industrial development is centered along the I-77 corridor near Blythewood.

And the biggest question mark there is Google.

The giant search engine company bought a 466-acre site there in fall 2007 and company officials have said they might or might not build a data center. If they do, it would employ at least 200 people to maintain computer servers.

“It’s everybody’s fervent hope that they’re going to put a server farm out there,” Salley said.

Such a center would complement Blythewood leaders’ hope for the land near their tiny but booming town. They are developing a master plan designed to attract clean, knowledge-based industries to the community.

The town has no real estate taxes and an aggressive annexation program that would take town limits to Clemson Road, Hardscrabble Road, the Fairfield County line and S.C. 321, said commercial real estate broker and town councilman Ed Garrison.

“What we need is economic investment,” he said.

But town residents have been clear about wanting only environmentally friendly businesses, “not the smokestacks,” near their serene suburban getaway, Garrison said.

With nine fiber-optic networks passing through the community, the town is in a good position to get exactly what it wants, he said, including feeder businesses for Google.

Even the economic crisis facing the nation might not put a damper on development in Northeast Richland.

There has been a “moderate slowdown,” Salley said.

But “there’s some potential,” he said, “big projects out there that could land in that area.”

Reach Rupon at (803) 771-8308.

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