Millions of square feet under construction, proposed across Charleston region

Listen to this article

With nearly 425,000 square feet of office space under construction in the Charleston region, Colliers International thinks businesses might move away from the region’s central business district.

The commercial real estate firm issued its first quarterly report for 2018 this week, noting that increased absorption, higher rental rates, along with close to half-a-million square feet of office space under construction, could lead businesses to the suburban market.

Crystal Baker, Colliers’ research coordinator for South Carolina, said the company identifies the central business district submarket as including heavily populated business areas that often see a lot of foot traffic during business hours. Charleston suburban market is typically a mixed-use community with commuters rather than foot traffic living within proximity of a larger municipality.

“The Charleston market saw record low vacancy rates during 2017, prompting the market to move into an expansion cycle,” Baker said in her analysis. “All submarkets had an increase of new construction projects and proposed development of new office buildings.”

Specifically, there were 614,989 square feet of new office buildings that came online in the region’s six submarkets in 2017, Collier said.

Today, 435,728 square feet is under construction and expected to be available this year. Baker pointed out that along with the 1.05 million square feet being added over two years from 2017 to 2018, another 1.34 million square feet of office space is being proposed for construction across the region.

“Previously, the high demand for office product within the Charleston market forced landlords to become creative with their buildings and repurpose storefront and retail space to be used for offices in order to satisfy the demand,” Baker said in her analysis. “Now, due to the current construction boom, the Charleston office market may be heading toward an office supply surplus.”

Commercial buildings under construction

Colliers International noted the following projects under construction in the Charleston market and submarket.

• Daniel Island, 172,000-square-foot Blackbaud building.
• Mount Pleasant, Ferry Wharf, 75 Port City Landing, 120,000-square-foot office building.
• Mount Pleasant, 235 Magrath Darby, 65,000-square-foot office building.
• Berkeley County, Carnes Crossroads, 27,832 square feet under construction.
• Mount Pleasant, 1034 Lansing Drive, 14,871-square-foot office building.
• Mount Pleasant, 363 Wando Place, 12,000 square feet under construction within the Wando Place Business Park.
• Charleston, The Anniston Building, 229 Huger St., 11,025-square-foot office building.