Doral

In the heart of the fast-changing City of Doral, plumes of dust rise up from the former headquarters for Ryder System Inc., as crews work to demolish the building. In its place, Shoma Development Corp. will build Park Square at Doral, a new high-density town center with retail, office and residential components.

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Less than a mile to the north, the city is planning the "Downtown Doral District," an even larger mixed-use project to be created by long-time developer Armando Codina at the site of Doral Center, one of area's first office building clusters.

Major employers throughout Doral--from the landmark Doral Golf Resort & Spa and the Miami Free Zone to relative newcomers like the Intercontinental Miami West and Carlos Albizu University (CAU)--are renewing themselves as well.

It is all part of the re-invention of Doral, a two-year-old city moving quickly to take charge of its destiny. "Projects like Downtown Doral District will go a long way to creating an identity for our city," says Doral Mayor Juan Carlos Bermudez. "It's a very exciting time."

For decades, the Doral area was known as Miami-Dade County's leading industrial market, filled with warehouses and distribution centers shuttling products back and forth from Miami International Airport and the Port of Miami. Today, those gritty warehouses and trucks exist side-by-side with new housing developments and office buildings, banks, upscale restaurants and supermarkets.

"In the 13 years I've been here, I've seen Doral go from being solely an import-export hub to attracting Fortune 500 companies," says Andy Abbate, president of Doral-based Tenbrook Associates Inc. and co-founder of the Doral Business Council, a year-old organization that promotes economic development. "Now, Doral is seeing strong growth in smaller businesses, including retailers and people working from home offices--a reflection of the growth of Doral's residential market."

It is a new texture for the city--and one that brings a host of new challenges: How to place upscale condominiums and townhomes next to a warehouse area; How to build parks, sidewalks and bike paths for residents; How can traffic congestion caused by heavy trucks, daily commuters and residents' vehicles be eased?

Since its incorporation on June 23, 2003, Doral's civic leaders have been wrestling with those questions.

Creating a sense of place

Undoubtedly, the most important changes in Doral's landscape are the result of the city's desire to create a sense of place. Like suburban communities throughout western Miami-Dade and Broward counties, Doral is looking toward mixed-use town center projects to encourage residents to get out of their cars and spend their leisure and entertainment dollars in their own community.

"People are bored with traditional suburban form and unimaginative sprawl," says Masoud Shojaee, president of Doral-based Shoma Development. "The need has intensified for a complete environment where people can work, shop and live, while enhancing their quality of life. I am a true believer that people can have it all."

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Shoma's Park Square at Doral will be a 2 million-square-foot development on the 53-acre site at NW 82nd Avenue south of NW 36th Street. Plans include more than 135,000 square feet of retail space, a 218,000-square-foot, six-story office tower and more than 2,500 townhomes, carriage homes, apartments and lofts. It will feature a pedestrian plaza for art festivals, concerts and other special events, as well as park areas, pedestrian paths and lush landscaping. Real estate broker Cushman & Wake-field Inc. is already handling leasing for the office tower, which is projected to be complete in February 2007.

Just north of the Doral Golf Resort & Spa on NW 53rd Street, Armando Codina, CEO of Coral Gables-based Codina Group Inc., will redevelop part of the 100-acre Doral Center as the city's new "downtown." Codina plans to demolish some of the center's existing office space, and replace it with a variety of residential, retail and office uses.

"Going back to the development of Beacon Centre, Codina Group's real estate roots stem from the evolution of Doral," said Codina in an e-mail interview. "What Doral needs now is a downtown.... With the combination of residential neighborhoods and prominent corporations that have sprung up in the last decade, and given its recent incorporation, Doral offers tremendous potential for development."

Like city officials, Codina hopes that Downtown Doral, similar to other infill developments, will allow the growing community to take better advantage of its existing roadway capacity, and balance traffic patterns.

Fighting Traffic Congestion

Traffic, in fact, is perhaps the biggest concern of Doral residents, businesses and government. Since the 1980s, the area has been the largest warehouse and office submarket in the county. According to commercial real estate brokerage and advisory firm CB Richard Ellis, as of mid-year 2005, the Miami Airport submarket (which includes Doral) made up 34 percent of Miami-Dade's 195 million square feet of industrial space.

Just a few minutes west of Miami International Airport and about 20 miles from the Port of Miami via the Dolphin Expressway, Doral's business parks were designed to accommodate the needs of shippers, freight forwarders and other export-import businesses.

Major east-west and north-south arteries are jammed with heavy trucks and delivery vehicles which share the roadway with residents and commuters.

"One of the reasons that Doral's roads are congested is that the main arteries are every mile on a grid network," says traffic consultant Joe Corradino, executive vice president of The Corradino Group, whose regional hub sits in Doral. "There is little access to the interior of the grid, putting a lot of traffic on relatively few roads."

Yet new types of businesses--from corporate headquarters and banks to telecommunications companies and florists--have continued to pour in. According to the Doral Business Council, an estimated 100,000 people commute to jobs in Doral each day--and thousands more pass through on their way to work in other locations.

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In the past five years, Doral has also become one of the county's fastest growing residential neighborhoods, according to figures from Miami-based real estate analyst Goodkin Consulting. Today, the city's population is estimated at 33,000, up from 21,000 in the year 2000--a 50 percent increase in less than five years. County studies show Doral is projected to reach build-out in 2018, with a population of approximately 66,000 residents.

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"Many people have set their sights on living in Doral," says Nubielena Medina-Gomez of Doral-based NMG Consulting. "As a business owner and a homeowner, this is good environment to work and raise a family. But getting all the people who work in the area in and out of Doral is a challenge."

Traffic consultant Corradino is helping the city develop a transportation master plan to enhance the capacity of the roadway system and develop alternative transit options. A number of road projects are already planned or underway, including a bridge over S.R. 836 (the Dolphin Expressway) at NW 97th Avenue that would provide a new southern access route to the city. The under-construction bridge was damaged in August's Hurricane Katrina. To the west, a new interchange on Florida's Turnpike at NW 74th Street is being designed, and 74th Street will be widened and extended to connect with the Palmetto Expressway to the east. On NW 25th Street, the city is working with the state on planning a truck bypass to take commercial vehicles directly to the airport.

Although much work is underway Doral has limited funding available for transportation projects, according to Corradino. Because the city was incorporated after passage of the county's half-cent sales tax for transportation, Doral does not receive a share of those funds. "The city will need to tap state and federal dollars for building, planning and designing," he says.

Allocating the Land

Aside from the daily traffic headaches, the key issue facing Doral's civic leaders is how to make best use of the city's limited supply of remaining undeveloped land. In January, city leaders imposed a moratorium on new development applications, pending the anticipated early 2006 approval of a master land-use plan.

A 2004 study by Miami-Dade County's Department of Planning and Zoning shows that about 20 percent of the 9,526-acre city, or 1,925 acres, is still available for development. Most occupied land is zoned for industrial or commercial use, and only 10 percent of Doral is dedicated to residential uses.

In trying to create a new type of community, Doral city leaders face other land use issues as well:

* The county's large Solid Waste Resource Recovery Facility is located within Doral's city limits. To the northeast of the city, the county has proposed expanding its Medley Landfill, a position the City of Doral actively opposes.

* Growth to the west is constrained by Florida's Turnpike and existing rock mining operations.

* There are height restrictions on many buildings that lie in the western approach flight path to Miami International Airport. And state law generally prohibits school construction under airport flight paths.

Creating more parks and green spaces is a top priority for Doral, according to the city's proposed master plan, which was prepared by Palm Beach Gardens-based Iler Planning Group in May and presented at a public hearing in August.

"Parks were determined in the visioning process to be a primary quality-of-life issue for city residents," said the Iler Group's report. "The process also revealed a desire by most residents for more and smaller parks, such as tot lots and passive parks, distributed within walking distance of most homes."

Doral is now planning improvements for the three major parks it inherited from the county. The city is also looking to residential developers to incorporate parks and green spaces into their projects.

One of the largest residential projects under construction in Doral is homebuilder Sergio Pino's Century Grand, a 400-acre community on NW 107th Avenue at 90th Street, in northern Doral. Now in the final planning stage, the $2 billion development will be the largest yet for Pino's company, Miami-based Century Homebuilders LLC. Pino plans about 4,350 homes, retail stores, restaurants, parks and a school to serve the surrounding area. "We already have about 3,000 reservations," says Pino, the company's president. "We plan to start selling at the end of the year and hope to break ground next March."

Century Grand will include about 250,000 square feet of commercial development within walking distance of the community's homes. Wide sidewalks and a trolley system are planned to create an old-fashioned neighborhood ambiance.

"The way traffic is today, people want to live close to where they work," says Pino, who has already built 7,000 homes in Doral, including The Islands at Doral, a single-family and townhome community that is nearly built out. "This city is in a great location with a strong employment base, and incorporation has been a very positive thing. Our government officials live right here and have local knowledge of the community."

Pino is not the only developer focusing on the city's northern side. Brickell-based Terra Group is planning The Reserve on two sites totaling 50 acres off NW 74th Street. Sales are expected to begin in early 2006 on the gated lakefront community of two-story townhomes.

On the eastern side of Doral, sales are underway for Las Vistas at Doral, a large-scale condo conversion by Prestige Builders Partners. "This is the single largest condominium conversion in the state," says Frank Mestre, Prestige's vice president for sales and marketing.

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Prestige has completed most of the capital improvements on the 969-residence project, which borders the Doral Golf Resort & Spa's golf courses. Mestre says the first two phases of Las Vistas are sold out, with the third phase scheduled begin sales in September.

"Doral is a very hot market right now," says Mestre, citing the influx of young professionals and their burgeoning families into the city. "It's a very central location and the city is enhancing the landscaping and infrastructure."

Doral is also one of Miami-Dade County's strongest markets for single-family and condominium resales, according to Ron Shuffield, president of real estate broker Esslinger Wooten Maxwell (EWM) in Coral Gables. "Values in Doral have been rising steadily for the past decade," he says. "The arrival of South-Com [the US Southern Command] was a benchmark, as it brought 1,000-plus military personnel to the community."

Currently, Doral has a very limited inventory of re-sale homes--only about 100 single-family homes and condominiums as of mid-August, says Shuffield. And the average time on the market is only about three weeks.

Multiple Listing Service figures show the median price of a single-family home in Doral is $460,000--up about 40 percent over the past year, according to Shuffield. The median condo price is $308,000, up about 29 percent. For comparison, countywide resale prices rose about 27 percent in the 12 months ending in June, according to the Florida Association of Realtors.

Shuffield sees Doral's next phase of residential building as mixed-use projects and developments like Century Grand. "That could usher in a new phase of growth that will be even more dramatic than the events of the last 10 years, since more and more people want to live in those types of communities," he says.

A Vibrant Industrial Market

It is not just city planners who are shaping Doral's future. Rising land costs and changing market conditions play an even more important role. For years, the unincorporated Doral area was considered the county's prime industrial zone--a place where shippers and freight forwarders could build mammoth warehouses and distribution facilities just a few minutes from the loading areas at the airport.

In the 1990s, developers like Codina and Easton Group's Ed Easton built large-scale business parks that defined Doral for that decade--and still have some remaining spaces for industrial development. During the late 1990s, Doral was a hotbed for South Florida's telecom sector. Older warehouses were remodeled and secure new facilities were built for Internet service providers (ISPs), data centers and "dot.com" companies aiming at regional or Latin American markets. Then came a decrease in Latin American trade and the technology crash of 2000, which crippled many of those plans and landed much of this industrial real estate back on the market.

An overall downturn in South Florida's market for industrial space, which started in 2000 and reached its peak in 2002, when industrial vacancies in the county hit 10 percent, also dampened developers' enthusiasm for industrial building.

At the same time, South Florida's red-hot residential market led to the development of multifamily projects or new office buildings on industrially zoned land, such as Codina's 436-acre Beacon Lakes.

However, Doral's overall industrial vacancy rate dropped to 6.7 percent in midyear 2005, down from 10.3 percent in midyear 2004, according to CB Richard Ellis.

Entrepreneurs who took advantage of that downturn, such as Daniel Contreras, CEO of CIMA Group, are also starting to expand. After eight years in the telecommunications sector, Contreras launched Anew Broadband in 2001 in a 22,000-square-foot operations facility developed for a tech company that had gone bankrupt. Today, CIMA is an 85-employee provider of integrated voice, data and Internet services using voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) and wireless technology.

CIMA has built partnerships with the Florida Foreign Trade Association and the US Department of Commerce to provide importers and exporters with communication services and productivity tools. "We have many significant customers here, including the Miami Free Zone," says Contreras. "There is no question that Doral is the right location for us."

It is a sentiment shared by many companies that require industrial or semi-industrial space.

"There has been a clear improvement in market conditions this year," says Scott Sime, managing director of CB Richard Ellis' West Dade office. "If you look at the statistics, you'll see 1.7 million square feet in absorption for the first six months, with very little new construction. Also, most of the sublease space has been absorbed and it's becoming a landlord's market."

For instance, logistics and delivery firm DHL Express Inc. leased a 206,000-square-foot warehouse at Beacon Lakes to house its South Florida contract logistics operations. Latin American software and hardware distributor Intcomex Inc. renewed its 150,000-square-foot lease for its headquarters at International Corporate Park.

"Our market is benefiting from a rebound in trade with Latin America," says Sime. "That's affecting our trade flow--flowers, computers, tile, and all the rest of the freight industry. Also, South Florida has a strong population growth and there's a lot of foreign capital investment here. Both those trends contribute to push up prices."

Sime expects to see a modest upturn in construction in the next few months. "There are some developers who own land who have been waiting for conditions to improve before putting their shovels in the ground," he says.

But because land values have climbed faster than a 747 cargo freighter, with only a modest increase in rents, it no longer makes economic sense for most developers to build industrial space.

"The challenge for industrial is the cost of land, as well as labor and construction materials," says developer Easton. "When it costs nearly $80 a foot for the land and building, and you're only netting $5.50 a foot in rent, it's just not worth taking the development risk. As a result, there will be less industrial development in the future--with the exception of a few big projects."

One way around the pricing dilemma is to offer warehouse condominiums--space a company buys rather than rents--in smaller configurations. For instance, rather than leasing to one 100,000-square-foot tenant, such a building might have 20 users buying 5,000 square feet apiece. "It's the only way to make the economics work," says Easton, who is planning a 250,000-square-foot condo facility on a 13-acre parcel at International Corporate Park.

Office Market Still Sluggish

Demand for office space in Doral has typically been for back office and administrative uses--although the community has successfully attracted several corporate headquarters as well.

"Carnival has been based in the Doral area for the past 19 years," says Bob Dickinson, CEO of Carnival Cruise Lines. Over the years, Doral's open space and easy access has allowed Carnival to grow to more than 2,500 employees at its 500,000-square-foot headquarters.

Through the first half of 2005, only 57,000 square feet of office space was absorbed in Doral, according to CB Richard Ellis. The midyear 2005 vacancy rate of 15.44 percent was down only slightly from the 17.0 percent of mid 2004.

"Many South Florida office tenants put their decisions on hold after 9/11," says Richard Bamonte, a vice president at CB Richard Ellis. "That slowdown affected Doral more than most other markets, because of the importance of the airport."

Leasing activity is rising again, he says, and current vacancies will decrease in the next few years when Codina Group demolishes about 1 million square feet of office space at Doral Center to make way for Downtown Doral District.

Looking at construction trends, Scott Strickland, vice president and leasing director for commercial real estate broker and advisor Jones Lang Lasalle, notes no major office buildings have gone up in Doral during the past three years. "This was the softest submarket in Dade and it still has a long way to go," he says. "But we are starting to see a positive trend, and sublease space is being taken up quite rapidly."

One of the few new office projects now planned is a 130,000-square-foot expansion of Doral Costa.

"We have seen more interest in office condominium space," says Strickland. "It's hard to put a handle on the depth of that demand. Major corporations typically shy away from ownership because they enjoy the flexibility of leased space. But for private companies, and medical-related users who have high build-out costs, condominium ownership can make a lot of sense."

A Home for Broadcasting and Telecom Facilities

Doral's modern business parks have proved to be ideal locations for broadcasting and telecommunications companies for the past two decades.

Spanish-language media company Univision Communications Inc. has an extensive Doral broadcast operation that includes Univision Network (Channel 23 in South Florida), Tele-Futura Network (Channel 69), Galavision (a leading Spanish-language cable network) and Univision Radio.

New York-based Viacom International Inc.'s South Florida television group is headquartered in Doral, with five television stations operated from one building: Miami/Broward stations WFOR/CBS4 and WBFS/UPN33, and West Palm Beach's WTVX/TVX34, WTCN and WWHB.

"All their operations, programming, promotions and management are located right here," Lee Zimmerman, the stations' director of communications, says. "In fact, this is the only instance in the entire country where you have five stations run in such a manner out of one facility."

WFOR is celebrating its 20th anniversary in Doral this year. "We moved our operation here from downtown Miami in the mid '80s, helping to pioneer development when this area was little more than fields," Zimmerman adds.

Population Growth Boosts Retail Sector

While office space demand in Doral has been sluggish, the influx of residents and businesses into the city has driven strong demand for retail space to house new stores, restaurants and entertainment offerings. Both budding entrepreneurs and national retailers are trying to capture their share of they city's residential and business spending.

"In the past few years, we've seen a move toward finer dining--not just large national retail chains, but local operators--to serve our community," says Mayor Bermudez. "It's a tremendous step in the right direction."

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For instance, Chispa, a successful Coral Gables restaurant, chose Doral for its second location. The new 225-seat restaurant on Doral Boulevard at the turnpike will open in December, according to Vincent Lombino, Chispa's director of operations. "There's not a lot in Doral yet that caters to the high end, and we'll offer a fun, exciting and stylish alternative," he says.

As for shopping, Doral residents can choose from a growing number of neighborhood retail establishments, as well as two major centers: Miami International Mall and Dolphin Mall.

The 96-acre Miami International Mall underwent a $9 million renovation in 2001, and has since added retailers such as Hollister Co., Guess, Pro Image and Mommy to Be, says Maria Prado, the mall's general manager.

The 1.4 million-square-foot Dolphin Mall, which has several outlet retailers and entertainment venues, will be getting a major new anchor next year with Miami-Dade's first showroom by Bass Pro Shops. The Dolphin Mall will gain another enhancement--a new Courtyard by Marriott hotel--whose groundbreaking is scheduled for this fall.

In fact, Doral's hospitality sector looks to be at the beginning of an expansion trend, driven by the city's rapid residential and business population growth.

The Intercontinental West Miami, for example, was built just five years ago with 148 rooms and 5,000 square feet of meeting space, but the upscale business hotel has already virtually doubled in size, according to Jose Marti, the hotel's general manager. The Intercontinental recently added a new tower with 117 more rooms and a 5,400-square-foot ballroom, doubling its meeting space. In addition, all existing rooms were renovated.

The Intercontinental's $13.5 million expansion and renovation has helped the hotel take advantage of the area's business growth, attracting more business meetings and offering an alternative meeting and conference location to the Doral Golf Resort & Spa.

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Under new ownership and management, the Doral Golf Resort & Spa--which helped give the city its name--embarked on a $50 million renovation and expansion program, according to Chris Bielski, the resort's director of sales and marketing. Orlando-based CNL Hotels & Resorts Inc., the nation's second largest hotel real estate investment trust, acquired the resort's previous owner in April 2004, and hired Marriott a few months later to manage the 650-acre property.

The most visible improvements to date include new landscaping and building awnings, enclosing the outdoor "Champion's Pavilion," and an $800,000 renovation of the Greg Norman-designed Great White Course.

But the biggest change is still to come: a new 60,000-square-foot building with a 24,00-square-foot ballroom and another 12,000 square feet of pre-function space. Ground was broken in August and completion is expected in late 2006. "This self-contained meeting facility will be a huge addition to our property," says Bielski, citing the potential to host even more local business meetings and events and the potential to draw out-of-town conventions.

A High-End Residential Base

The burgeoning high-income population in Doral has attracted retailers, and other businesses have quickly followed. For instance, boutique financial advisory firm JDM Partners LLC, which focuses on serving high-net-worth individuals and families, recently moved from downtown Miami to Doral.

"In addition to making sense financially and being centrally located for our employees, we enjoy the fact that Doral has tremendous entrepreneurial spirit and a growing number of affluent business owners and families moving into the area," says JDM president Dany Garcia Johnson.

Larger financial services companies, which historically had a heavy Doral presence for trade finance and back-office operations, have also started expanding their retail presence.

One of the first major banks to focus more extensively on Doral's retail market was Citibank FSB, which opened an office in 1984 at the corner of NW 36th Street and 87th Avenue, and moved its headquarters there eight years later. "That move showed a great deal of foresight," says Barbara Romani, community relations director for the bank and chair of the Doral Business Council.

Today, Doral is enjoying a new wave of banking expansion. "It's a very dynamic market in both the commercial and personal banking sectors," says Guillermo Villar, CEO of Commercebank, which opened its first Doral office in the early 1990s. Commercebank recently opened a second Doral branch and might open a third in the future. "One of the nice things about Doral is that it's a balanced market in terms of deposits and loans." Villar says. "Both our offices are doing very well."

Hemisphere Bank moved its headquarters from Coral Way to Doral four years ago. "We see opportunities in serving the industrial market as well as the residential," says Walter R. Cook, chairman and CEO of the bank. "We believe Doral is less banked than other areas, and there are opportunities in personal banking as well."

Another institution, US Century Bank, is building a new headquarters and retail branch in Doral. "We already service many commercial clients in the Doral area, so this is a natural move for us," says Octavio Hernandez, Century Bank's CEO. The ten-branch bank, now based at Flagler Street and 75th Avenue, expects to have its new headquarters ready by the end of the year.

RELATED ARTICLE: An Affluent City

A STUDY CONDUCTED BY DORAL-BASED CARLOS Albizu University (CAU) for the city shows that approximately two-thirds of Doral residents are Hispanic. Unlike much of South Florida, only 15 percent of Doral's Hispanics are of Cuban descent, and 4 percent are of Puerto Rican heritage. Most Hispanics residing in Doral hail from other Latin American countries, particularly Venezuela. Nearly 85 percent of Doral residents do not speak English in their home. Only 2.2 percent of the city's residents are black, as compared to 20.7 percent in Miami-Dade County.

The CAU study also showed that Doral residents are slightly younger and significantly more affluent than county averages. The median household income of $57,707 is well above the county's $35,966 average--and more than 7 percent of Doral households have annual incomes of $200,000 or more.

Doral residents are well-educated, too. More than 91 percent are high school graduates, compared to 67 percent countywide. Nearly half hold a bachelor's degree or higher--more than double the county average of 21.7 percent.

"Doral's higher educational levels help attract businesses to the area," says Gerardo Rodriguez-Menendez, CAU's chancellor. "Companies like to move to areas with intellectual capital for their recruiting. The city recognizes that this is one of Doral's major advantages."

CAU, which offers programs in psychology and business, has been part of Doral's educational scene since it moved to an 18-acre campus in 1999. "We have about 1,000 students, and enrollment is growing about 15 percent annually," says Rodriguez-Menendez. "Our master architectural plans call for a 50,000-square-foot expansion, which will give us 20 new faculty offices, 15 new classrooms and an attractive student union."--RW

RELATED ARTICLE

MANUFACTURING GROWTH

On Oct. 1, PAL Laboratories Inc., a subsidiary of Miami-based Pharmed Group Inc., owned by Carlos and Jorge de Cespedes, will manufacture its first pills in a new $20 million, 47,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility. "We will focus on doing work for major national corporations, as well as large and small chains like CVS, Walgreens and Wal-Mart," says Jorge de Cespedes, Pharmed's president and COO "The big chains all have their own private labels, and that's a role we hope to fill. Wal-Mart alone bought $1.3 billion worth of vitamins last year."

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PAL Laboratories utilizes the latest technology in blending, packaging, compression and encapsulation equipment in the production of pharmaceuticals. When fully operational in late 2006, the plant will employ more than 150 people.

"In a marketplace like ours with low unemployment, getting good people becomes a critical part of your job as an executive," de Cespedes says. "We feel that being located in Doral lets us attract employees from both Dade and Broward."

A Doral location also helps Pharmed and PAL Laboratories reach out to prospective customers. "We can invite a group of executives to come down and play the Blue Monster [golf course] at Doral [resort] for a day, then come over and see our plant," says de Cespedes. "They walk in and see our facility and the mouths drop open.... Carlos and I feel this is our company's future."

HELLMAN ADDS TO DORAL OPERATIONS

While most distribution companies in South Florida look to the south, Hellmann Worldwide Logistics Inc. is looking to the north. Since 1996, Hellman's headquarters for the Americas has been based in Doral. In 2001 the logistics company added a perishables division to its facility, which now houses 221 employees in 65,000 square feet of office space and 180,000 square feet of warehouse facilities on Doral Boulevard.

In April, Hellman decided to base its new 18-office US domestic operation in Doral, bringing in Brian McConaghy as vice president of domestic operations. He works under Frank Scheibner, the newly appointed president and CEO of Hellmann USA. Doral also houses Hellman's IT operations for the US, Canada and Latin America, as well as its local branch operations.

"We are 100 percent committed to Doral and we're here to stay," Scheibner says. "Doral is close to the airport and has a fine infrastructure in terms of housing and restaurants. Many of our employees live here, as well."

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Hellman's Doral facility handles perishable products like flowers and vegetables, and plans to get involved in new market segments like heavy-lift cargos and project-related moves. "Our plan here calls for continuous growth," Scheibner says. "Not just for Latin America, but for Europe and Asia as well." In fact, Hellman provides logistics services for clients whose products don't ever touch South Florida, such as arranging ocean shipments from a manufacturer on one continent to an assembly plant on another.

A REJUVENATED FREE ZONE

Soon after acquiring the Miami Free Zone a year ago, Ralph Gazitua and Gary Goldfarb began taking aggressive steps to rejuvenate the 825,000-square-foot, duty-free logistics facility. At the time, the free zone had 42 tenants--an effective occupancy rate below 50 percent.

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"This is a premier third-party logistics facility, but it needed to be revitalized," says Gazitua, president of the only privately owned trade zone in the United States. In the past 15 months, Gazitua and Goldfarb, who is executive vice president, have signed 75 leases, and brought occupancy levels to 85 percent, with 100 tenants.

"We sat down with every tenant personally and looked at their product mix and goals, and tried to guide them along the way," Gazitua says. "Some tenants have moved from one space to another, and one grew from 20,000 to 130,000 square feet."

With 1,000 employees, the Miami Free Zone is one of the city's chief economic engines, handling more than $1 billion of international trade annually. Its roster of tenants includes companies importing or exporting such noted brands as Azaleia, Bulgari, Cartier and Rimoldi, as well as organizations such as the Doral Business Council, the Florida Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association, and the Florida Foreign Trade Association.

"We're at the center of it all," adds Gazitua. New services at the free zone include wireless Internet access, a BankUnited ATM, a new cafe and advanced videoconferencing technology. To promote their tenants' businesses, Goldfarb and Gazitua host exhibitions and seminars, and the facility also holds videoconferences with international businesses and governments.

To provide further support to tenants, Goldfarb led the development of an automated inventory control application that meets US customs requirements. "Now a tenant can create customs documentation, print out, sign the document and present it to Customs from the comfort of his office," he says. "Customs representatives can also look up the documentation as well."

Earlier this year, the US Customs and Border Protections Seaport Operations moved to the free zone, where its 50 inspectors now process all documentation for inbound and outbound ocean freight. Another new tenant is trade promotion agency Apex-Brasil, which recently opened its Brazilian product distribution center for the US.

As a logistics facility with pre-positioned inventory, the Miami Free Zone benefits from overall increases in US trade levels, says Gazitua. "With the exception of Venezuela, we see a strong outlook for Latin America's economies," he adds. "The passage of CAFTA-DR [the Central American-Dominican Republic free trade agreement] is huge for South Florida. It will accelerate the flow of business and perhaps some of the manufacturing that has gone to Asia may return."--RW

A MILITARY PRESENCE

Since 1997, Doral has been the headquarters for the US Southern Command (SouthCom), which is responsible for all US military activities in South and Central America. The military's lease on the 40-acre property expires in February 2008.

SouthCom employs about 1,600 personnel, according to Jose Ruiz, SouthCom's media relations officer.

The economic impact goes beyond being a major employer. "We purchase 10,000 airline tickets a year and occupy 15,000 hotel room nights," Ruiz says. "The personnel working here go to lunch in the Doral community and shop here as well. We are integrated into Doral on a daily basis."

SouthCom is involved in community activities as well, contributing more than 30,000 volunteer hours a year. Among other activities, SouthCom personnel and their spouses volunteer their time and serve as mentors at the Ryder Charter School in Doral. "We have a volunteer coordinator and a quality of life advisor who help our team have an impact on improving our local community," Ruiz says.--RW

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RELATED ARTICLE: DORAL'S REAL ESTATE MIX

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