Citadel migration continues: Exec buys Pinecrest home for 91% markup

Chicago hedge fund is relocating its HQ to Miami, fueling demand in resi market

Citadel's Scott Hazard and Ken Griffin with Southwest 94th Street in Pinecrest (1Oak Studio, LinkedIn, Getty)
Citadel's Scott Hazard and Ken Griffin with Southwest 94th Street in Pinecrest (1Oak Studio, LinkedIn, Getty)

Another Citadel executive is making the move to Miami, fueling a payday for the sellers of one Pinecrest home.

Scott Hazard, a former Google executive who joined the Chicago-based hedge fund as chief workplace officer in May, paid about $6.5 million for a home on Southwest 94th Street.

Hazard bought the five-bedroom, 5,900-square-foot Pinecrest house from Marco and Gisell Torres for just over $1,000 per square foot, property records show.

Citadel employees have been on the hunt for homes in South Florida ever since their billionaire boss, Ken Griffin, announced in June that he was moving the hedge fund and the financial services firm, Citadel Securities, to Miami. Griffin himself has been assembling residential properties in South Florida for more than a decade.

The timing worked out for the sellers of the Pinecrest home, who paid just $3.4 million for it in April 2021 and sold it to Hazard for nearly double that.

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The non-waterfront house was on the market with One Sotheby’s International Realty’s Michael Martinez, while Gloria Arango of Coldwell Banker represented the buyer, according to Zillow.

The two-story house, on a 0.7-acre lot with a pool and summer kitchen, was completed last year.

After announcing the move to Miami, Citadel scored space at the under-construction 830 Brickell office tower and expanded its existing office at the Southeast Financial Center downtown while Sterling Bay builds its new headquarters on another bayfront site in Brickell.

Citadel employees have been working with top real estate agents across South Florida to find homes, which are in short supply. Records show that in May, a Citadel Securities partner bought an under-construction home in north Coconut Grove.

Citadel has also been expanding its footprint in Brickell. In addition to being linked to the buyer of the development site at 1201 Brickell Bay Drive, which sold for a record $363 million, and the $286.5 million sale of the office building across the street at 1221 Brickell Bay Drive, Citadel recently paid $20 million for the apartment building at 1250 Brickell Bay Drive and an adjacent lot.

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