Quick answer: The Treasure Coast is St. Lucie, Martin and Indian River counties; the Space Coast is Brevard County. Together they held about 1.4 million permanent residents on April 1, 2025 by the state's estimate, and St. Lucie County grew faster than the other three since the 2020 census. The employer lists, port, airport and industrial figures in this article carry the dates their sources give, some from 2022 and 2023, and several corridor pages are undated. The only vacancy and rent figures I found are one brokerage's second quarter 2025 industrial numbers. No office or retail statistics with a stated definition turned up. Treat this as a map of what is on the record, not a forecast.
Buyers, tenants and investors looking at commercial property here usually start with the same question: what is actually on this stretch of coast, and how much of what they have heard is on the record? This article is a map of the four counties this site covers, built only from dated public and brokerage sources. It is not a forecast, and it does not say what any property is worth.
Four counties, two names
The Treasure Coast here means St. Lucie, Martin and Indian River counties. That is also how Cushman and Wakefield described the territory of its Treasure Coast team in a February 24, 2026 release. The Space Coast means Brevard County, which the Space Coast EDC describes as home to Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Population: two estimates, two dates
The state's Office of Economic and Demographic Research published county and city estimates as of April 1, 2025 on October 15, 2025, using the University of Florida's Bureau of Economic and Business Research (BEBR) figures. The table compares them with the 2020 census counts the state publishes alongside them. The percentages are my arithmetic, not the state's.
| Area | 2020 census | April 1, 2025 estimate | Change (computed) |
|---|---|---|---|
| St. Lucie County | 329,226 | 394,074 | 19.7% |
| Martin County | 158,431 | 166,281 | 5.0% |
| Indian River County | 159,788 | 173,013 | 8.3% |
| Brevard County | 606,612 | 667,900 | 10.1% |
| Port St. Lucie | 204,851 | 260,194 | 27.0% |
| Palm Bay | 119,760 | 146,929 | 22.7% |
| Florida | 21,538,187 | 23,379,261 | 8.5% |
The same table lists Melbourne at 88,499, Fort Pierce at 51,352, Titusville at 51,158, Cocoa at 21,518, Stuart at 20,573 and Vero Beach at 16,800. BEBR notes that its estimates cover permanent residents only and use the housing unit method, so seasonal residents are not in these counts.
The Census Bureau's QuickFacts (Vintage 2025) are dated July 1, 2025 and use a different method, so they differ: 402,449 for St. Lucie County, up 22.2 percent from its April 1, 2020 base, and 268,062 for Port St. Lucie, up 30.9 percent. Do not take the Census 2025 figure and the BEBR 2020 figure and compute a growth rate that neither agency published.
The employers the public lists name
For St. Lucie County, the Economic Development Council's employer list is the most specific source I found, with headcounts employers provided in 2022 and 2023. On that list, St. Lucie Public Schools has 5,253 employees, HCA Florida Lawnwood Hospital 1,896, Cleveland Clinic Martin Health 1,544, the City of Port St. Lucie 1,363, the Walmart Distribution Center in Fort Pierce 1,273, HCA Florida St. Lucie Hospital 937, St. Lucie County 791, Indian River State College 734, Pursuit Boats 652 and Florida Power and Light 610. Those figures may not reflect 2026 staffing.
For Indian River County, the chamber's economic development site says Piper Aircraft, headquartered in Vero Beach, is the county's largest manufacturing employer with approximately 1,500 employees, the only Indian River headcount I could confirm. For Martin County, I did not find an employer list with headcounts that I could read.
For Brevard County, the Space Coast EDC's industry profile (last modified October 29, 2025) names employers without headcounts: L3Harris, headquartered in Melbourne, which the profile calls "the area's largest employer in the industry"; Boeing and Lockheed Martin with headquarters offices on the north side of the county; Collins Aerospace, Leonardo DRS, Northrop Grumman and Embraer with centers in the south; and Blue Origin, SpaceX and OneWeb Satellites as newer space companies. The one Brevard headcount with a date comes from NASA: the Kennedy Space Center FY2025 annual report puts the total center population at 17,701, including 9,214 tenant personnel, and says the center helped launch 110 missions in that fiscal year.
Corridors: highways, ports and airports
On the Treasure Coast, the City of Port St. Lucie describes a 1,200-acre tract along I-95 as the Southern Grove Jobs Corridor, inside the 3,605-acre Southern Grove Development of Regional Impact and the 8,200-acre Tradition area, and says fewer than 20 acres remained available there by 2025. Florida's Turnpike Enterprise is planning to widen the Turnpike mainline from Indiantown Road in Jupiter to Okeechobee Road through Palm Beach, Martin and St. Lucie counties. The study phase concluded in February 2023, but the Turnpike's own page says none of the design segments is funded for right-of-way acquisition or construction. That should change how you read a "coming widening" line in a marketing flyer.
Treasure Coast International Airport in Fort Pierce covers 3,844 acres with, by the EDC's description, more than 1,000 acres available for lease and development, Foreign Trade Zone 218, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection office on site and about eight miles to I-95 and the Turnpike. The Port of Fort Pierce is one of 16 deepwater ports in Florida. Its port area is managed by the St. Lucie County Board of County Commissioners, its main tenant is Derecktor Shipyards, and the county is preparing a 2026 update that supplements its 2020 master plan (City of Fort Pierce notice, May 28, 2026).
On the Space Coast, Port Canaveral says I-95 is 13 nonstop miles from the port entrance, State Road 528 gives direct access to Orlando, and the Florida East Coast Railway is reached through an intermodal terminal about 15 minutes away. The Space Coast Transportation Planning Organization lists two SR 528 widening projects between SR 524 and the Port Canaveral and SR 401 interchange and says the six-lane widening is in the design phase. The port reported $218 million in earned revenue for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2025, of which $182 million was cruise, $25 million cargo and $11 million non-ship operations (State of the Port, November 6, 2025).
Property types: what the sources actually show
No primary source I found states which property type dominates any submarket on either coast. What the sources show is narrower. The City of Port St. Lucie's Southern Grove page names manufacturing and distribution users, among them a Costco distribution center of 1.8 million square feet under construction, a 411,000 square foot City Electric Supply (TAMCO) plant, FedEx, Amazon and Cheney Brothers facilities, and a Cleveland Clinic hospital with a 107,000 square foot research center. The Port of Fort Pierce is a working port with a shipyard as its main tenant. In Brevard, the EDC's employer names are aerospace and defense manufacturers. Those are indications of use, not a market share, and they say nothing about what a given building is worth.
Cushman and Wakefield's February 24, 2026 release, a brokerage statement, attributes developer and investor interest in the Treasure Coast to net migration and to buyers "looking northward for more affordable options than South Florida." The same release puts Treasure Coast employment at 176,000, up more than 13.4 percent, with about 200,000 expected by 2030, and the Space Coast workforce at 258,000, up more than 10.2 percent from the third quarter of 2024 to the third quarter of 2025. I did not confirm the period behind the Treasure Coast figure, and a projection in a recruiting announcement is an opinion, not a measurement.
The industrial statistics and their limits
The only vacancy and rent figures with a stated quarter that I found come from Matthews, one brokerage, in its second quarter 2025 industrial reports published August 6 and 7, 2025. The Brevard data comes from CoStar. Neither page says whether the asking rent is triple net or gross, or whether it is an annual figure, so I present the numbers as the firm labeled them.
| County (Q2 2025, Matthews) | Vacancy | Market asking rent per SF | SF absorbed | Under construction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| St. Lucie | 3.3% | $16.92 | -16,289 | None ongoing |
| Martin | 3.0% | $17.85 | -1,066 | 36,000 SF |
| Indian River | 15.8% | $11.75 | 127,718 | 150,000 SF "on the way" |
| Brevard | 3.5% | $13.62 | 131,000 | 148,000 SF |
Read those figures for what they are: one firm's measurement of one property type, more than a year old as I write this, with Martin County's inventory described as around 5.5 million square feet. A negative absorption number means more space was vacated than leased in the quarter. I found no office or retail vacancy or rent report for either region with a stated metric definition.
What I could not confirm, and what to verify
There is no Brevard, Martin or Indian River employer list with current headcounts that I could read, and the St. Lucie list is from 2022 and 2023. I found no official 2026 launch count, and the KSC figure of 110 missions is a fiscal year count, not a calendar year. No industrial report newer than the second quarter of 2025 turned up with a stated definition, and I could not retrieve the Colliers Treasure Coast industrial reports.
For a specific property, the work is yours and your advisers'. Ask the listing broker for the source and date of any vacancy or rent figure. Ask the county or city for the status and funding of any road project cited in the marketing. Ask the property appraiser for the parcel's assessment history, and have a Florida real estate attorney and a CPA review the purchase or lease before you commit. If you are selling one investment property to buy another, my 1031 exchange guide is the place to start.
The short version: these four counties have measured population growth, named employers with dated headcounts in one county, one dated federal headcount in Brevard, and names without counts elsewhere, port, airport and highway facts on the public record, and one set of year-old industrial statistics. That is enough to start a conversation about a property. It is not enough to price one.
Questions buyers, tenants and investors ask about the two coasts
Which counties make up the Treasure Coast and the Space Coast?
In this article the Treasure Coast is St. Lucie, Martin and Indian River counties, and the Space Coast is Brevard County, which the Space Coast EDC describes as home to Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
How fast is Port St. Lucie growing?
Census QuickFacts (Vintage 2025) put the city at 268,062 on July 1, 2025, up 30.9 percent from its April 1, 2020 base. The state's BEBR estimate for April 1, 2025 is 260,194, which works out to 27.0 percent over the 2020 census count. The dates and methods differ, so do not mix the two.
Who are the largest employers in St. Lucie County?
The county EDC list, with headcounts employers provided in 2022 and 2023, starts with St. Lucie Public Schools at 5,253, HCA Florida Lawnwood Hospital at 1,896, Cleveland Clinic Martin Health at 1,544 and the City of Port St. Lucie at 1,363. Those figures may not reflect current staffing.
What are the industrial vacancy rates on the two coasts?
Matthews, one brokerage, reported second quarter 2025 vacancy of 3.3 percent in St. Lucie, 3.0 percent in Martin, 15.8 percent in Indian River and 3.5 percent in Brevard. The figures are more than a year old and the rent definition is not stated.
Is there a current office or retail vacancy report for these counties?
I did not find one with a stated metric definition for either region. Ask any broker who quotes an office or retail figure for the source, the quarter and the definition.
Is the Turnpike widening through St. Lucie County funded?
Not for right-of-way or construction. Florida's Turnpike Enterprise says the study concluded in February 2023 and design segments exist, but none of the projects is funded for right-of-way acquisition or construction.
Talk with William. Looking at a building, a parcel or a lease on either coast? Send me the address and what you plan to do with it. I will pull the public record for that parcel and the dated sources for its submarket so you can see what is documented before you negotiate. Call or text (772) 800-2274 or send a message.
General information, not legal, tax, lending, insurance, survey, environmental or engineering advice. Population estimates, employer headcounts and the brokerage statistics in this post carry the dates shown and will change; the Matthews figures are one firm's second quarter 2025 measurement, and no Brevard, Martin or Indian River employer list with headcounts was verified; the Piper Aircraft and Kennedy Space Center figures are the exceptions, with the dates shown. Confirm parcel facts with the county property appraiser, a Florida real estate attorney, a CPA and a land use attorney or planner. Source references are as reviewed on October 22, 2026. William Merchant, REALTOR®, RE/MAX Gold. Each RE/MAX office is independently owned and operated. Equal Housing Opportunity.
Sources
- Office of Economic and Demographic Research: Florida Population Estimates by County and Municipality, April 1, 2025 (October 15, 2025)
- BEBR: Florida Estimates of Population 2025 (methodology note on permanent residents and housing unit method)
- U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: St. Lucie County, Florida (Vintage 2025)
- U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Port St. Lucie city, Florida (Vintage 2025)
- NASA: Kennedy Space Center FY2025 Annual Report, NP-2025-11-1087-KSC
- Space Coast EDC: Industry profile (page last modified October 29, 2025)
- Economic Development Council of St. Lucie County: Major employers (employer updates 2022-2023)
- Indian River County Chamber of Commerce economic development: Piper Aircraft and target industries (undated)
- City of Port St. Lucie: Southern Grove (latest dated item January 28, 2025)
- Florida's Turnpike Enterprise: Treasure Coast Turnpike mainline widening projects (undated)
- Economic Development Council of St. Lucie County: Treasure Coast International Airport (undated)
- City of Fort Pierce: Port of Fort Pierce master plan update notice (May 28, 2026)
- Port Canaveral: Distribution and logistics (undated)
- Space Coast TPO: Partner projects, SR 528 widening (undated)
- Port Canaveral: State of the Port address (November 6, 2025)
- Matthews: Q2 2025 Treasure Coast Industrial Market Report (published August 7, 2025, secondary)
- Matthews: Q2 2025 Space Coast Industrial Market Report (published August 6, 2025, secondary)
- Cushman and Wakefield: Recruits NAI Southcoast and JSA teams (February 24, 2026, secondary)
