COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE PKG

C1 3 it seems like everyone is trying to do the same.

...but what about commerical real estate?

Many of the industries that use those spaces were hit hard during the pandemic....but as abc 36's bobbi mcswine reports commercial real estate is seeing a bit of its own boom in central kentucky.

####### "it really did gather a lot of steam and so by the end of the year, business activity was actually pretty strong."

Al isaac..president of commercial real estate agency n-a-i isaac in lexington...says he saw an increase in commercial real estate purchases in 2020...and he doesn't see the momentum fading.

Isaac: "the fact that interest rates were really low encouraged people that we're going to get this and if i take advantage of these low interest rates now, i'm going to be in better position once we do come out of this."

Agave and rye is one of those businesses taking advantage of the opportunity.

Johnson: "our next move is actually to go to downtown to be around that traction and to be around that quantity of people to go ahead and believe in the brand that we do."

Manager nicholas johnson says he's excited.

The popular taco shop has one location in lexington...in the fayette mall parking lot.

But just next door you can see two businesses are vacant.

Isaac says you might see that for a while, but before the end of 2021, he expects to see those vacancies decrease...though it may not be in retail.

"we're going to see an increase in office space demand bacsue i think we'll be far enough past the worst effects of covid and people can then see how they need to operate to go forward."

Though the hospitality industry has been hard hit, the vacancy rate didn't dramatically increase from one year to the next.

In fact...he sees new restaurants popping up nearly everyday.

Johnson say he's thankful to have weathered the storm.

"this is one we all went through together, and if we can make it, don't ever give up."

"one of the roles that i think everyone in the company needed to play over the last 12 months is supportive and cheerleading."

And isaac says he happy to see local businesses win.

In lexington...bobbi mcswine...abc 36 news.

###### isaac says office spaces and the industrial industry stayed pretty consistent in vacancis over the past year.

He adds rent prices haven't changed much either.

######## u-k football lands a big in-state