Israeli company drops $13M on Fort Lauderdale offices

An Israeli company recently purchased an office building in Fort Lauderdale for $13.1 million.

The Merrill Lynch Plaza, at 2601 to 2611 East Oakland Park Boulevard, was sold by the real estate investment and holding firm Berman Enterprises. CBRE represented the seller.

Berman purchased the plaza in 2012 for $7.6 million, according to Broward County property records.

“The buyer, an Israeli equity source, was attracted by the long-term dynamics of this already strong office micro-market and opportunity to further improve occupancy,” Scott O’Donnell, senior vice president CBRE Investment Properties, said in a statement. “The buyer was astute enough to envision the property’s residential development potential as the area becomes more of a ‘live, work, play’ location over the coming years.”

A company titled 2601 M L fund purchased the property. It is linked to a subsidiary of the Netz Group — a publicly traded Israeli company that has interests in hotels, industrial industries and real estate.

The company’s website said its branch in the U.S., Netz USA, is aggressively expanding its commercial real estate portfolio and planned to spend $130 million on properties over the last year.

Merrill Lynch Plaza is a two-building office complex near I-95. The first building has three stories with 18,000 square feet, and is occupied by the wealth management firm Merrill Lynch.

The second building is a six-story office tower that has 59,878 square feet. It was built in 1972, fully renovated in 2007 and is 85 percent occupied.