Aby Rosen’s New York City-based firm RFR Holding paid about $90 million for an office building in downtown Miami that had been tied up in litigation, sources told The Real Deal, as out-of-state investors continue to bet on the region’s growing office market.
A partnership led by East End Capital sold the 30-story, 310,000-square-foot 100 Biscayne building at 100 Biscayne Boulevard. RFR announced the sale without a price. Sources said the company paid about $90 million for the property.
In South Florida, RFR also owns the W South Beach and retail space on Miami Beach’s Lincoln Road.
RFR plans to renovate the office building into “quality boutique office space,” Rosen, co-founder and principal, said in a release.
A Cushman & Wakefield team led by Adam Spies, Adam Doneger and Dominic Montazemi brokered the deal.
The office building was mired in litigation between East End and its partner, an Australian investor, which sought to cut East End out of the joint venture by alleging mismanagement. The Australian investor sought $50 million in damages, which broke down to $20 million for its initial investment and $30 million in allegedly lost profits. A judge dismissed one lawsuit this month, court records show.
The suits alleged the tower was in so much financial distress that the lender was on the verge of foreclosure last summer until a last-minute forbearance agreement was finalized that mandated the sale of the building. An attempt to sell the office tower to BentallGreenOak in 2020 failed, and resulted in additional litigation.
The East End partnership paid $84 million for the property in 2016, records show. Two years later, the developer completed a $10 million renovation that included a new facade, amenities and lobby.
Major financial firms, tech startups and institutional players have invested in the Greater Downtown Miami office market in the last 12 months, and more deals may be in the works.
Brickman is reportedly in contract to sell its properties at 200 Southeast First Street and the Courthouse Tower at 44 West Flagler Street for close to $60 million, according to a source. The Miami Tower is about to hit the market for about $200 million, the source said. Both deals are being handled by the same Cushman & Wakefield team.
Last year, a joint venture between Monarch Alternative Capital and Tourmaline Capital Partners paid $279 million for a 90 percent stake in Citigroup Center, a 34-story office building and adjacent nine-story parking garage at 201 South Biscayne Boulevard in downtown Miami. The Spies-led Cushman & Wakefield team also brokered that deal.
A separate joint venture picked up One Biscayne Tower in downtown Miami for $225 million last summer.
Those acquisitions were preceded by Blackstone Group’s $230 million purchase of the office buildings at Brightline’s MiamiCentral station, also in downtown Miami, earlier last year.