Construction has begun on a $65 million industrial project in East Tampa that will eventually put three rear-load warehouse buildings on a 51-acre site at the intersection of U.S. 301 and East Sligh Avenue, with completion expected in late 2027. The site sits two minutes from I-4, with direct access to downtown Tampa, and offers connections to both Interstate 4 and Interstate 75, placing it in one of the region's busiest logistics corridors.
The project, called 301 Exchange, is being developed by Creation Equity, an Arizona-based real estate development and investment firm, according to the Business Observer. The $65 million cost and the late-2027 completion timeline were attributed to Luke Georgiadis, principal of Creation's East Coast division, through a company spokesperson, per the same report. Creation is partnering with PCCP, a Los Angeles real estate investment firm, on the development, and the company plans a ceremonial groundbreaking in the coming weeks.
Sources differ on exactly how large 301 Exchange will ultimately be. The Business Observer's reporting rounds the planned area to 330,000 square feet, while Creation Capital Management's own property page states the project will deliver three buildings totaling 329,000 square feet of modern logistics space across the 51-acre site — though other snippets tied to Creation and to builder LGE Design Build put the figure at 353,000 square feet. The Business Observer separately reports the three buildings will range individually from 100,101 to 129,317 square feet.
Wetlands Make Up Most of the Site
Nearly all of the undeveloped acreage at 301 Exchange isn't buildable in the traditional sense: 39 of the site's 51 acres are designated wetlands, according to Creation's property page. Each of the three planned buildings will feature 32-foot clear heights and two points of ingress and egress, and all three will be built as rear-load facilities, per the Business Observer's reporting.
Leasing on the project has already started, with the space represented by JLL brokers Pete Cecora and Harrison Pithers, the Business Observer reports. Creation's East Coast division, based in Tampa, opened in 2025 and is also pursuing projects in South Florida, Orlando, Fort Myers and Jacksonville, according to a company statement cited by the outlet. Company-wide, Creation Equity has active development projects totaling $4.5 billion across eight states, with offices in Phoenix and Dallas in addition to Tampa. On its property page, Creation says its Florida portfolio now exceeds one million square feet under development or moving through entitlements across the state.
A Tightening Market With Rising Rents
301 Exchange is breaking ground as Tampa Bay's industrial market shows signs of strain even amid continued construction activity. The region's overall industrial vacancy rate climbed to 8.2% in the third quarter of 2026, up 80 basis points from the prior quarter and 60 basis points from a year earlier, according to Cushman & Wakefield. The market also recorded nearly 197,000 square feet of negative net absorption in the quarter — its first quarterly decline since mid-2025 — though year-to-date absorption remained positive at 686,000 square feet, a reversal from a 92,000-square-foot decline over the same period in 2025, per the same report.
Rents, meanwhile, keep climbing. Tampa Bay's overall weighted average industrial asking rent closed the third quarter at a record $11.30 per square foot, up 3.6% from the prior quarter and 11.1% year over year, Cushman & Wakefield's data show. More than one million square feet of new industrial space delivered in the region during the quarter, pushing year-to-date deliveries to 1.5 million square feet, with another 1.3 million square feet still under construction at quarter's end.
East Tampa's Crowded Industrial Pipeline
301 Exchange joins a string of industrial projects reshaping East Tampa's warehouse landscape. Nearby, the Constellation East Tampa Business Center is planned as a three-building, 251,162-square-foot speculative campus on 19 acres at 7351 Muck Pond Road, with construction set to begin in May 2026 and wrap by May 2027, according to Tampa Bay Business & Wealth. Those buildings, planned at 127,050, 76,650 and 47,462 square feet, will each carry the same 32-foot clear heights as 301 Exchange's structures. A partner on that project described East Tampa as a highly desirable, land-constrained submarket with strong demand for industrial space.
EastGroup Properties is also active in the area, moving forward with three Tampa industrial projects totaling 604,000 square feet and $73.7 million in projected costs, Tampa Bay Business & Wealth reported. Those include the 226,000-square-foot Bell Creek 1 & 2 development, budgeted at $42.6 million and expected to enter the company's operating portfolio in October 2028, along with the 156,000-square-foot Crossroads 3 project and the $4.2 million Oak Creek 1 redevelopment, both expected to transfer in October 2027. By the end of September, EastGroup had 21 developments and redevelopments underway across 14 markets nationally, representing 4.1 million square feet and a combined projected cost of $636.7 million.
