Brookdale drops $38M for Plantation office building

Eight-story building at the Cornerstone Corporate Center is 80% leased

Cornerstone Corporate Center I at 1200 South Pine Island Road in Plantation with The Brookdale Group’s Robert Turner, as well as co-founders Charles Davidson III and Fred Henritze
Cornerstone Corporate Center I at 1200 South Pine Island Road in Plantation with The Brookdale Group’s Robert Turner, as well as co-founders Charles Davidson III and Fred Henritze (Google Maps, The Brookdale Group)

The Brookdale Group scooped up a Cornerstone Corporate Center office building in Plantation for $37.9 million. 

AFL-CIO Building Investment Trust, advised by PNC Realty Investors, sold the eight-story property at 1200 South Pine Island Road, according to records and real estate database Vizzda. 

Built in 1991 on 9 acres, the building is part of the multi-building Cornerstone office campus. 

The 170,000-square-foot Cornerstone One is 80 percent leased. Tenants include Marriott International, Morgan Stanley and MetLife, according to a news release from the seller’s broker. 

Hermen Rodriguez and Matthew McCormack were part of the JLL team that represented AFL-CIO. 

The deal marks the second one this year at the Cornerstone campus. In February, air conditioning company Air Pros USA owner Douglas Anthony Perera paid $14.3 million for the five-story Cornerstone Five building at 1250 South Pine Island Road. 

AFL-CIO is a commingled commercial real estate investment trust, with investors that include pension funds and retirement plans, according to the trust’s website. Founded in 1988, its trustee is PNC Bank. 

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Brookdale, based in Atlanta, is a private commercial real estate firm that has sponsored eight funds that have invested more than $2.5 billion to date, according to its website. Five of the funds have been liquidated. Charles Davidson III and Fred Henritze founded Brookdale in 1994.

Robert Turner is CEO. 

The company has been a sporadic South Florida investor. In 2019, Brookdale dropped $80.3 million for four office buildings at Sawgrass International Corporate Park. Records show Brookdale still owns the properties at 1551, 1560 and 1550 Sawgrass Corporate Parkway, but it sold the building at 1601 Sawgrass Corporate Parkway in 2021 for $27 million. 

The Cornerstone deal comes amid a significant slowdown of commercial real estate investment deals in South Florida. The Federal Reserve’s nine interest rate hikes over the past year have put the kibosh on the sale flurry that ran from late 2020 to late last year. 

Despite this, the office market has experienced some recent activity. Last month, auto dealer Ali Ahmed paid $39 million for the Biscayne Centre at 11900 Biscayne Boulevard in North Miami. 

Also last month, The Ward Law Group bought the Miami Lakes complex at 7900 Northwest 154th Street for $21 million, with plans to move the personal injury firm’s headquarters.

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