Commercial Condos Catching On

Commercial condominiums are likely to become a more popular option for small-business owners looking for bases of operation, some experts say.

Commercial condos have long been a source of considerable tax breaks for businesses. These breaks are not available to companies that lease the property their employees occupy. Also, it’s typically easier for a business to alter or renovate a condo than to change leased space.

Despite these benefits, the commercial condo concept isn’t particularly popular in the United States.

“In Italy, France and Germany, a lot of people buy their own office blocks. It’s not an unusual thing to do,” says Michael Corbett, president of GVA World Wide, a global real estate advisory company. “It’s much less common in North America.”

That’s changing.

An entrepreneurial couple in Evansville, Ind., for example, is seriously considering converting the city’s first high-rise building into a commercial condominium complex, reports The Evansville Courier & Press. The couple cites the saturation of the city’s downtown residential market as the reason.

“As the listing market tightens up, and as developers and building owners look for alternative ways to structure their buildings, condominiums become the obvious choice,” says GVA’s Corbett.

Commercial condos are more likely to become available to businesses in cities like New York, which has more buildings divided into smaller units than do other cities, Corbett says. That’s compared to places like Dallas or Atlanta, where big blocks of commercial space are most common.

To learn more about current commercial property market trends, check out Vendome’s listing of commercial leasing and management titles at: www.vendomegrp.com/real-estate.html.