Lionstone roars into Miami Gardens with $17M office building acquisition

Bal Harbour-based firm paid $297 psf for the building

Lionstone's Diego Lowenstein with 5901 Miami Gardens Drive (Lionstone, iStock, Loopnet)
Lionstone's Diego Lowenstein with 5901 Miami Gardens Drive (Lionstone, iStock, Loopnet)

Lionstone Development leapt into the South Florida office feeding frenzy with a $16.8 million acquisition in Miami Gardens.

An affiliate of the Bal Harbour-based real estate investment firm acquired Commons Plaza, a newly renovated, three-story office building at 5901 Miami Gardens Drive, according to records. Lionstone, led by CEO Diego Lowenstein, paid $297 per square foot for the building.

The seller, an entity managed by Norberto Roman of Miami, sold the nearly 3-acre property for $12 million above its $4.8 million purchase in 2019, records show. The 56,601-square-foot building was completed in 2008.

Alex Zylberglait with Marcus & Millichap represented the seller and the buyer.

The deal did not include two out of 144 office units in Commons Plaza, and the building is 99 percent occupied by a mix of professional tenants, the release states. Commons Plaza also has a wait list of prospective tenants, reflecting strong demand for spaces in small and suburban office buildings, Zylberglait said in a statement.

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South Florida is experiencing a flurry of office trades recently. This month, MHCommercial Real Estate Fund II and an unidentified partner paid $45.9 million for the Yamato Office Center, a two-building complex in Boca Raton.

In April, Valoro Capital picked up an office building in Miami’s Blue Lagoon neighborhood for $18 million; and Miami attorney Alex Hanna and his wife, Lizet Hanna, acquired an office building on Miami’s Flagler Street for $15 million.

The same month, Boca Raton-based CS Ventures paid $35 million for a pair of office buildings along Bankers Row in Palm Beach. And in Miami Beach, an entity tied to Boston-based The Davis Companies bought a four-story Class A office building for $52.3 million.

In Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, rents and tenant demand tracked upward in the first quarter, according to a JLL report. The average asking rent in Miami-Dade hit $48.66 a square foot, representing a 10.2 percent jump compared to the same period last year. The county had a vacancy rate of 18.8 percent in the most recent quarter.

Average asking rents in Palm Beach County climbed 26.5 percent, year-over-year, to $53.47 a square foot, JLL found. The vacancy rate was 13.5 percent in the most recent quarter.