The Weekly Dirt: Is $250M office sale an indicator of Brickell’s strength?

Nuveen is selling (or sold) the 801 Brickell office building in Miami for about $250 million. The deal will likely set a record for South Florida investment sales this year.

The sale, as first reported by my colleague Lidia Dinkova, could be an indicator of the strength of Miami’s Brickell office market at a time when not many trophy office buildings are trading in major cities across the country. 

It could also be the largest office investment sale this year for the top markets, including New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, Dinkova tells me. I-sales have slowed down over the past year because of the sharp rise in interest rates and return-to-office woes in many major U.S. cities. 

To be clear, the buyers of 801 Brickell, Monarch and Tourmaline, are not acquiring a distressed piece of real estate: 801 Brickell is more than 90 percent leased, and tenants include investment firm Selvatra, Cassel Salpeter and Swiss Re Group. Groot Hospitality’s Komodo restaurant is a retail tenant. 

The 695,000-square-foot building, which includes about 415,000 square feet of offices, is trading for about $600 per square foot. That’s not the highest price per foot we’ve seen in recent years, but it’s up there. 

Monarch and Tourmaline are financing about 60 percent of the purchase price, which is favorable in today’s environment, sources tell Dinkova. 

And Brickell has emerged as a much stronger office market than others since the pandemic began. Billionaire Ken Griffin selected Brickell as the location for a new skyscraper, where his Citadel and Citadel Securities will be based. (Griffin also acquired the 28-story building at 1221 Brickell Avenue for $286.5 million, or about $700 per square foot, last year.) 

But according to one source, the sale of 801 Brickell is probably not an indicator of more to come this year. 

What we’re thinking about: I’m still thinking about this construction accident at the site of Related Companies and Swire Properties’ planned supertall office project, where a chunk of the existing building fell onto Brickell Avenue. How does something like that happen, and what protections should be in place? Send me a note at kk@therealdeal.com. 

CLOSING TIME 

Residential: Real estate power couple Craig Robins and Jackie Soffer sold their waterfront Miami Beach mansion at 2511 Lake Avenue for $36 million, about 20 percent off the original price. A Delaware entity purchased the home. 

Commercial: Principal Asset Management sold Lyons Technology Center, a six-building warehouse portfolio in Coconut Creek to Stockbridge Capital Group for $48.9 million. The deal included the buildings at 4611-4661 and 4701 Johnson Road, as well as at 4811 and 4911 Lyons Technology Parkway. 

— Research by Kate Hinsche

NEW TO THE MARKET 

A waterfront Venetian Islands estate that sold three years ago for $9.5 million hit the market last week for about three times that price. The 5,500-square-foot, six-bedroom, six-and-a-half-bathroom home at 327 East Rivo Alto Drive is asking $30.6 million. It has 90 feet of water frontage, an outdoor kitchen, pool and dock. Morgan Blittner of Brown Harris Stevens is the listing agent. 

A thing we’ve learned 

Waterfront land has become so scarce in Miami Beach that one developer plans to split a large lot into three and build homes for his children — the eldest is currently 12. That developer is Jamie LeFrak, who moved from New York City in 2019. 

Elsewhere in Florida 

• Widely feared (this is a good thing in journalism) Florida journalist Lucy Morgan died at 82 from complications related to a fall. Morgan, who began her career at the Ocala Star-Banner, was once sentenced to eight months in jail for refusing to disclose her sources for a series she covered about public corruption for the then-St. Petersburg Times.
• A law invalidating Miami-Dade County’s ban on pit bulls goes into effect today. Residential communities will still be able to ban specific dog breeds, but municipalities will not, Local 10 reports. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Florida State Bill 942 and Florida House Bill 941 into law in June. 
• DeSantis pulled funding for scholarships to four private schools in the state because he said they have ties to the Chinese Communist Party, according to USA Today. The schools include two outside of Fort Lauderdale and two in Winter Park, near Orlando. An administrator at one of the schools said it had no ties to any government.