Commercial strength not fading in Lexington

The Lexington, Kentucky, commercial real estate market continued to show strength during the first half of 2018. That strength should continue in 2019 with vacancy rates remaining low across multiple sectors, increasing demand in every category and strong demand for retail and industrial properties.

Lexington offers businesses a variety of viable locations. Hamburg and the Nicholasville Road corridor continue to be the area’s top two retail destinations. National retailers looking to enter the Lexington market require a presence in one if not both of them.

Lexington has recently added several new offerings to the market. Mixed-use developments such as the Summit at Fritz Farm, City Center (still under construction) and the Manchester Distillery District are evolving as destination areas for people throughout southern, eastern and central Kentucky, providing a curated mix of local and regionally sourced restaurants, retail shops, residential options and professional office space.

Live-work-play real estate development concepts are currently experiencing success in most markets. Developers bringing these concepts to Lexington are successfully attracting new businesses to the city, many of them nationally recognized retailers.

Technology Infrastructure improvements are playing a role in attracting businesses to Lexington. The city’s partnership with MetroNet and its plan to become the largest gigabit city in the country, providing ultrafast Internet, television and telephone service to all residents and businesses via fiber cables, has garnered national attention, and will help attract industry leaders to Lexington. The city continues to offer relatively low utility costs, making Lexington a very affordable place to do business and live.

The office market in Lexington remains stable with a mix of traditional office buildings, creative workspace concepts and co-working spaces designed to attract the next generation of business owners. These forward-looking concepts prove especially important as Lexington’s population is younger, on average, than either the rest of Kentucky or the United States.

The city is also experiencing an increase in the development of commercial land located on the city’s periphery, including areas along Nicholasville Road, Leestown Road and Georgetown Road as commerce pushes outward toward Lexington’s neighboring cities. As more people commute to Lexington for work and recreation from neighboring communities, commercial developments will continue to trend along the major commuter corridors.

Lexington is a vibrant and attractive city with a high quality of life that offers an ever-evolving commercial real estate landscape to large and small businesses.

Lexington’s population growth serves to help support the growing and diverse commercial real estate markets. A few of Lexington’s recent rankings according to publications are:

#10 Best Large Real-Estate Markets, WalletHub

#9 Cities with the Most Diverse Industries, Business Facilities

#6 Economic Growth Potential of Mid-Sized Cities, Business Facilities

#4 Best-Run City in America, WalletHub

Al Isaac is president of Lexington’s NAI Isaac.