Nashville's  office vacancy dipped 0.5 percent in the second quarter, down to 10 percent, according to a report from Cassidy Turley.

For Class A space, that rate is now 6.6 percent and rents for top-flight office space now averages $23.43 per square foot, a record for the market. The Central Business District was a driver of the office absorption, with a total absorption of 186,000 square feet, driven by new downtown leases from Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman and Asurion at the AT&T Building and the Ragland Building, respectively.

With a vacancy rate of just 4.3 percent and precious few options for users needing more than 10,000 square feet, the report indicates Cool Springs may be ripe for new construction.

Things were less rosy on the industrial side. Vacancy is down, but just 0.2 percent against the first quarter, to 9.4 percent. Rents were basically flat at $3.54 per square foot.

The major driver continues to be the Southeast submarket — roughly the I-24 East corridor. So far this year, the area has absorbed more than 984,000 square feet, an astonishing 85 percent of the entire Nashville market's absorption. Nevertheless, the vacancy rate is still at 13 percent there.

Most other submarkets have single-digit vacancy rates, due in large part to owned-operated facilities and long-term leases.

 
Amstar, Huntington team up in La Vergne

Denver-based real estate investment manager Amstar and owner-operator Huntington Industrial Partners announced the acquisition of a fully leased industrial property at 1325 Heil Quaker Blvd., just across the Davidson-Rutherford county line.

The 187,930-square-foot single-tenant bulk industrial property was built in 1989 and is leased to global manufacturer Regal-Beloit Corp.

The deal adds to the Middle Tennessee holdings of Amstar, which earlier this year sold the McEwen Building in Cool Springs for $40 million. It also owns downtown's Fifth Third Center.