A national dermatology company headquartered in Central Florida is putting more skin in the office real estate game.

Maitland-based Advanced Dermatology & Cosmetic Surgery is growing its headquarters from roughly 25,000 square feet to 35,000 square feet at Southpoint Executive Center at 151 Southhall Lane, Orlando Business Journal has learned.

The company signed a 10-year lease, and Shipley Hall (pictured above), executive vice president at Orlando-based real estate firm Tower Realty Partners, represented the building owner, which is also Tower Realty.

Advanced Dermatology & Cosmetic Surgery didn't use a broker.

The new office space will accommodate more job growth, but specific numbers or what positions will be hired weren't immediately known. Neither Hall nor Advanced Dermatology & Cosmetic Surgery were available for comment.

Dr. Matt Leavitt founded Advanced Dermatology & Cosmetic Surgery in 1989 and has grown it to more than 150 locations in the U.S., according to its website. And the company has seen more growth in recent years. In 2016, it grew its corporate headquarters space by 7,500 square feet and 100 employees. At the time, the company was valued at $750 million-$800 million and had more than 2,000 employees nationwide.

Office Challenges

"Suspense builds" in Orlando's office submarket, which has started to feel the effects of Covid-19, according to a second-quarter Chicago-based JLL (NYSE: JLL) report.

And the long-term Maitland headquarters deal is seldom seen right now in the Central Florida office market where many companies are signing shorter leases in response to Covid-19, which moved more office employees to working from home. Meanwhile, office vacancies were trending higher and average asking rents were trending lower in the second quarter, showing a softening of demand for office space.

Most notably, sublease vacancies have more than doubled in 2020 when compared to 2019 — and are at the highest since 2010.

"Sublease availabilities are springing up across the market as tenants are either downsizing their workforce, shutting down, or transitioning to a more work-from-home-friendly structure," according to the report.

But these new vacancies are met with little demand as "virtually all" new-to-market and expansion deals are on hold, per the report.

That said, it’s too soon to determine the pandemic’s impact on future space needs, experts say. A recent JLL survey showed only 4.9% of office workers want to work from home exclusively going forward; roughly 60.6% of workers plan to return part of the week; and about 34.5% aim to come back full time.

“Although social distancing requires increased individual space allocation, companies across Florida are not using this as a planning metric for long-term individual space allocation,” said Eva Garza, JLL’s statewide workplace consultant.

Source:  OBJ