The Post Falls commercial real estate market is staying strong!
While commercial real estate activity has slowed in many parts of the U.S., the city of Post Falls has a substantial amount of activity either planned or in the works.
Meantime, vacancy rates in all commercial sectors in the city are low and appear to be holding steady.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., is well under way on construction of a $10.3 million, 150,000-square-foot super center just east of the Cabela’s outlet on the Idaho side of the Washington-Idaho state line. That store is scheduled to open by mid-2010. The store will be the second Wal-Mart in the town of 25,000 people.
Near the planned Wal-Mart, Lowe’s Companies Inc., the large, national home-improvement store chain, has obtained land and a building permit from the city of Post Falls. The company plans to break ground on a new store later this year, reportedly around the same time the Wal-Mart opens. The proposed Lowe’s will be the first big-box chain’s first store in Post Falls.
As national chains continue to expand into North Idaho, vacancy rates for rental space are holding steady despite the national economic downturn, and landlords are fetching higher rental rates.
The Spokane-Kootenai Real Estate Research Committee published “The Real Estate Report” in December with vacancy-rate surveys for office, industrial and retail space in communities throughout the Inland Northwest.
The surveys, conducted by Spokane commercial appraisal firm Auble, Jolicoeur & Gentry, showed that Post Falls had the tightest office and industrial markets in North Idaho and a healthy retail market.
The office sector had a vacancy rate of just under 3 percent, essentially the same as it was in the year-earlier survey. The annual rental rate on recently signed leases stood at $15.24 per square foot, a dollar more than the average annual rental rate on all leases. Consequently, landlords are garnering more money for office space than they had in the past.
In the industrial market, Post Falls has a larger amount of square footage than any other community in North Idaho and the smallest vacancy rate. The survey reported that only 1.75 percent of the nearly 2 million square feet of industrial space was vacant. The average annual rental rate on recently signed leases was $7.44 per square foot, more than a dollar higher than average annual rental rate for all industrial space.
In the retail sector, the vacancy rate was higher than it was in the office and industrial sectors, but the rental rates were rising quickly. Post Falls’ retail market had a vacancy rate of just above 12 percent, roughly the same as it has been the past two years. The average annual recent rate is $13 per square foot, more than $1.50 more than the overall annual rental rate.
While competition for space remains strong, land along heavily traveled traffic corridors remains available for development. T.J. Barnhart, of Keller Williams Realty Coeur d’Alene, is marketing a 30-acre parcel along state Highway 41, less than a half-mile north of a major retail center that includes the town’s original Wal-Mart. The land is zoned so that it can be used for a variety of uses—office, industrial, retail or multifamily.
“It’s a unique opportunity in the current economy,” Barnhart said.
