$57M double play: JV acquires two downtown Miami office buildings

UPDATED, May 10, 4:10 p.m.: Triple Double Real Estate and Stonerock Capital Partners paid $56.7 million for two office buildings in downtown Miami.

The joint venture acquired a 12-story building with a data center and ground-floor retail at 200 Southeast First Street, as well as a 26-story building anchored by First Horizon Bank at 44 West Flagler Street near the Miami-Dade County Courthouse, according to a press release.

The two buildings have a combined 306,545 square feet, so the deal worked out to $184 a square foot.

Triple Double is a Delray Beach-based real estate investment firm led by co-founder and CEO Andrew Greenbaum and President Jeremy Becker. Stonerock Capital Partners is based in Boca Raton and is managed by Yaakov Handelsman, according to corporate records.

A Cushman & Wakefield team led by Mike Davis and Dominic Montazemi represented the seller.

Two entities managed by New York real estate investor Bruce Brickman sold the two buildings for $4.6 million less than the previous sale price from six years ago, records show. In 2016, the Brickman entities paid $27.5 million for the tower at 44 West Flagler Street and $33.8 million for the building at 200 Southeast First Street.

A Cushman & Wakefield spokesperson said both buildings were put on the market and sold together as a portfolio. The spokesperson declined comment on the listing date of the properties or the asking price.

Both buildings had a combined occupancy of 59 percent at the time of sale, and they feature move-in ready spec suites, the release states.

Miami-Dade’s office market experienced increased average asking rents for a seventh consecutive quarter, based on performance during the first quarter of the year, according to a JLL report. The overall market had an average asking rent of $48.66 per square foot in the most recent quarter, representing a 10.2 percentage point jump compared to the same period of last year, JLL found. In downtown Miami, rents hit $47.54 a square foot in the most recent quarter.

Recent office deals in Miami include Valoro Capital’s $18 million purchase of a nine-story building near Miami’s Blue Lagoon business district, and Miami attorney Alex Hanna’s $15 million acquisition of a seven-story office building on Flagler Street.

In January, Aby Rosen’s New York City-based firm RFR Holding paid $81.1 million for the 30-story, 310,000-square-foot 100 Biscayne office tower at 100 Biscayne Boulevard in downtown Miami.