The Sunshine State’s economy should further rebound in 2012, with South Florida outperforming what turned out to be a disappointing 2011, several indicators show.

“We see the momentum,” said Tony Villamil, principal economic advisor to the Washington Economics Group and dean of the St. Thomas University School of Business.

“Incomes and population growth will be up [in 2012] and unemployment is slowing declining,” added Sean Snaith, director of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Economic Competitiveness.”

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MIAMI —Liberty Property Trust (NYSE: LRY) has plans to develop the 1.6 million-square-foot Miami International Tradeport, a $135 million industrial park located on Florida’s Turnpike, south of Okeechobee Road in Miami. Coconut Creek, Fla.-based Butters Construction & Development has been selected to oversee construction of the park.

“We feel there is a tremendous opportunity for well-designed and located industrial product in Miami-Dade County, and we are excited to begin development and to grow our footprint in South Florida,” said Andy Petry, vice president and city manager for Malvern, Pa.-based Liberty.

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Of the more than 65.5 million square feet of properties managed by the companies on this week’s OBJ largest property management companies, there are more than 19.5 million square feet of industrial, 9.7 million of residential and 754 properties.

To see the entire list of the Top 25 largest property management companies in Central Florida, see our Dec. 2 print edition.

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida real estate experts and investors were pessimistic for a second consecutive quarter, despite encouraging signs in the rise of occupancy rates and prices in the rental apartment market, a new University of Florida survey finds.

The Survey of Emerging Market Conditions, conducted quarterly by the Kelley A. Bergstrom Center for Real Estate Studies at UF’s Warrington College of Business Administration, indicates the main reason for the third-quarter malaise was the falling market for single-family houses, condominiums and most types of land.

Uncertainty over unsettling economic news at the international, national and state levels provides the backdrop for the declining perspective, said Timothy S. Becker, director of the Bergstrom Center. The Commercial Real Estate Sentiment Index declined in the third quarter marking the second consecutive decline of the year.

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Industrial Brokers across the Southeast feel much better than they did this time last year, and the statistics are showing why.

We surveyed 10 of Colliers International’s Southeast Offices about the state of the industrial market. Everyone has shown decreasing vacancy, positive absorption and an increase in activity.

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The Florida Department of Revenue has decided to suspend its consideration of a sales tax on tenant improvements to commercial property.

For now, at least.

“We are not proceeding with the rule at this time,” DOR spokeswoman Renee Watters said Tuesday.

Could the proposal return in the future?

“That’s what ‘at this time’ generally means,” Watters said.

Commercial real estate brokers and development industry leaders opposed the tax, suggesting it had the potential to have a significant negative impact on the state’s economic comeback.

The Florida Gulfcoast Association of Realtors hosted a meeting of industry leaders and DOR officials in Tampa earlier this month.

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A debt-restructuring deal involving two distressed Michigan office buildings has raised concerns among analysts and prompted a debate in the commercial mortgage-backed securities industry about the role of special servicers.

Special servicers are responsible for managing commercial-mortgage securities when they run into trouble and increasingly have been involved in foreclosing on properties or working out troubled deals with landlords. They are largely unregulated but are closely watched by holders of the bonds that they manage.

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Florida’s unemployment rate fell sharply to 10.3 percent in October, reaching the lowest level in 28 months, state officials reported Friday.

Over the month, Florida gained a net 9,500 jobs, pushing the state up 106,900 jobs since January and 93,900 jobs compared to a year ago.

The jobless rate, down from 10.6 percent in September, represents about 955,000 unemployed Floridians out of a labor force of 9.2 million.

Since peaking at 12 percent last December, Florida’s jobless rate has slowly and steadily improved. However, it still remains far higher than the national rate of 9 percent and nowhere near what would be considered a more healthy rate of 6 percent or below.

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Did Warren Buffett buy Burlington Northern railroad just in time for freight from Asia to find a different route to Kansas?

Right now, about 70% of U.S. imports from Asia arrive by ship on the West Coast, and much of that then gets transferred to rail lines like Burlington Northern’s for transit to the rest of the country.

But in 2014, Panama will rock the world of logistics. That’s when it will open a fat new lane of its canal for big ships that can carry three times as much as vessels sailing the current channel. If larger vessels make …

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Orlando last week lost Nephron Pharmaceuticals Corp.’s planned new $313 million manufacturing plant and its anticipated 707 high-wage jobs to South Carolina.

Now, local economic development officials are left to figure out why the Orlando-based generic respiratory drug maker decided to build the facility elsewhere.

Orlando-based Nephron operates a 250,000-square-foot manufacturing, distribution and packaging complex in Orlando, employing more than 450 people in Florida, and has distribution centers in Kentucky and Arizona. The firm does not plan to move its Orlando operation.

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