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Monarch paying $300M for downtown Miami office tower

Will take 90% stake in Citigroup Center, Crocker Partners keeping remaining interest

Clockwise from left: Citigroup Center at at 201 South Biscayne Boulevard, Monarch Alternative Capital CEO Michael Weinstock, Crocker Partners’ Angelo Bianco (Daniel Christensen/Wikipedia, Monarch, Crocker Partners)
Clockwise from left: Citigroup Center at at 201 South Biscayne Boulevard, Monarch Alternative Capital CEO Michael Weinstock, Crocker Partners’ Angelo Bianco (Daniel Christensen/Wikipedia, Monarch, Crocker Partners)

Monarch Alternative Capital agreed to acquire a 90 percent stake in a downtown Miami office tower for $300 million, The Real Deal has learned.

Monarch is taking over Townsend Group’s interest in Citigroup Center, a 34-story office building and adjacent nine-story parking garage at 201 South Biscayne Boulevard, according to sources familiar with the deal. Crocker Partners will keep the remaining ownership stake.

The deal, which is under contract, would mark the largest office sale in Miami since at least 2019.

A Crocker Partners spokesperson declined to comment. The Boca Raton-based real estate investor paid $262.5 million for the property in 2012.

Monarch, an investment firm with offices in New York and London, focuses on the debt of distressed and bankrupt companies, according to its website.

Citigroup Center’s office building spans 813,000 square feet and is about 70 percent leased to tenants with a roughly six-year weighted average lease term, according to marketing materials from Cushman & Wakefield.

A Cushman & Wakefield team led by Adam Spies and Mike McDonald is marketing the property for sale. They couldn’t be reached for comment.

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Citigroup Center, which connects to the Intercontinental Miami Hotel, went through a $20 million renovation that was designed by architect Richard Meier and completed last year. Blanca Commercial Real Estate was tapped to handle leasing of the tower in September.

Duane Morris LLP inked a nearly $17 million lease for the penthouse office suite in 2018.

But the property was not immune to the effects of the pandemic. Court records show CP Miami Center LLC, the Crocker Partners affiliate that owns the building, filed three lawsuits against tenants alleging unpaid rent last year. One remains open.

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Now investment sales of office properties have resumed in South Florida, encouraged by the migration of tech and finance firms to the Miami area.

In March, Blackstone Group paid about $230 million for the office buildings at Brightline’s MiamiCentral station near downtown.

Earlier this year, the Related Companies paid $282 million for the Phillips Point office towers in West Palm Beach.

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