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WeWork won’t work: Firm backs out of lease at Doronin’s 830 Brickell
Sandeep Mathrani’s company had signed in 2019 for 146K sf
WeWork won’t lease space at 830 Brickell in Miami, after all.
The co-working firm confirmed it opted out of its plan to open at the marquee office tower that is under construction. Developers Vlad Doronin’s OKO Group and Cain International chose to buy out the company’s lease.
WeWork, led by Chairman and CEO Sandeep Mathrani, still has expansion plans for Miami. It is in talks to open two more locations in the city, according to the Commercial Observer, which first reported that WeWork backed out of 830 Brickell. An anonymous source told the publication that the buyout deal made WeWork “more than financially whole for the entire term of the lease.”
The firm had originally signed in 2019 for 10 floors spanning 146,000 square feet. Since then, the office market has changed drastically because of the influx of companies to South Florida. At the end of the second quarter, 830 Brickell’s asking rents reached $125 per square foot to $150 per square foot, with the neighborhood as a whole leading the Miami-Dade County market with a 42 percent increase in rates, year-over-year, according to a JLL report.
These are unprecedented rates, said Maggie Guajardo Kurtz of Colliers. “We were in awe when we hit the $100 mark, maybe two months ago,” she said.
The 55-story 830 Brickell, slated for completion this year, has scored several leases in recent months. Chicago-based law firm Sidley Austin took 60,000 square feet on three floors this month.
A-CAP, a New York-based insurance firm, leased the entire 35th floor spanning 20,000 square feet in June. In January, Canadian asset management company CI Financial opted to double its original lease to roughly 40,000 square feet.
Other tenants that have signed leases are Thoma Bravo, Marsh Insurance and AerCap.
The robust Brickell office market got another boost when Ken Griffin announced last month that his hedge fund Citadel and financial services firm Citadel Securities will move their headquarters to the neighborhood from Chicago. Bloomberg has tied the purchasing entity of the waterfront vacant lot at 1201 Brickell Bay Drive to Citadel.