What is the future of Delaware commercial real estate?

Are mixed-use projects still the way of the future in Delaware? What factors drive demand in the office market, and where will the market be in two years?

These are just a handful of the topics to be covered at the fourth annual Delaware Commercial Real Estate Forecast Conference on Nov. 6 at the Sheraton Wilmington South Hotel from 8 a.m. to noon.

Wilmington, by the data, was the second-least expensive city for commercial real estate in Greater Philadelphia in 2018, with only Allentown, Pennsylvania, averaging lower office space rents. But there are issues that have made Wilmington less attractive to some office space seekers.

“The bigger problem is the wage tax,” said Wills Elliman, Wilmington-based Senior Managing Director of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank (NGKF), told Technical.ly last December. “The head tax is only $10 per month per employee for $120 a month, that’s no big deal. Wage tax — 1.25% — becomes real money. Depending on the income level of the employees and the densification of the space — in other words, how many people are in 1,000 sq feet, for instance — the tax could be two to three dollars per square foot. Parking is seven to 10 dollars per square foot — now you’re getting close to $40 per square foot. The absolute highest price in the suburbs is $30.”

Elliman will be among the speakers at the Forecast Conference, which focuses on office, retail and residential real estate, along with Dailey Tipton, VP of Evolution Energy Partners; Mary Ellen Gray, the City of Newark’s Planning and Development director; Todd Breck, principle at Breckstone Architecture and others.

Click here to register for the conference.