⏰ Closing Time

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Happy Saturday Highest & Best! This was a big week for closers. Here’s the rundown:

💰Fort Lauderdale’s $400 million week

🎓 Vanderbilt University’s tropical campus

💥 Boca’s big build

🥂 Luxury condo status checks

🏗 Another supertall Miami tower?

Let’s get to it!

Fort Lauderdale’s $400 Million Week

It’s no surprise anymore when an office property in Miami sells for a quarter-billion dollars (or more). Throw in some pricey land deals for future towers, and it’s practically a local tradition.

But just up north in Fort Lauderdale? Not so much. It’s been nearly a decade since an office building traded for $200 million.

That changed this week. Twice.

🤝 Deal #1: Chicago-based Bradford Allen Investment Advisors paid $208 million for Las Olas Centre I & II, a 470,800-square-foot office complex in downtown Fort Lauderdale, according to the South Florida Business Journal. The property, at 350 and 450 East Las Olas Blvd., is Bradford Allen’s first-ever purchase in South Florida.

The complex is 69% occupied, and the new owners are planning a $25 million renovation, upgrading conference rooms, the gym and lobbies, in hopes of luring more tenants (at higher rents), they said in a press statement.

As of Thursday, this was Fort Lauderdale’s biggest office deal in nine years.

Then Friday happened…….

🤝 Deal #2: Less than 24 hours later, that title was gone, with news that Bank of America Plaza sold for “more than” $220 Million, the Business Journal reported.

The 23-story property, at 401 East Las Olas Blvd., comes with a blue-chip tenant roster that includes UBS, Motorola, and yeah, Bank of America. It was purchased by a trio of investment firms, including Miami-based Square2 Capital and Dallas-based Lone Star Funds, who see two things they like about the market and the moment:

“In-migration trends and return-to-work mandates,” was how Lone Star’s global head of commercial real estate put it in a press release.

🤔That being said: Neither of these two deals came with a major jump in value. Bank of America Plaza last traded for $220 million in 2016, meaning this week’s sale price is roughly flat from nine years ago.

And Las Olas Centre’s $208 million deal? Just a modest increase from its 2014 sale price of $204 million. 🤷‍♀️

⏪ Catch up on recent Highest & Best issues:

• Beach Bummer, February 9, 2025

• Lease and Desist!, February 1, 2025

• The Roaring Renties, January 25, 2025

• Sticker Shocked, January 18, 2025

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Vanderbilt’s Tropical West Palm Beach Campus 

Nashville’s Vanderbilt University has offered a first glimpse of its plans for a $520 million campus in West Palm Beach, unveiling a series of tropical, sunshine-infused renderings this week. The aim, Vanderbilt said, is to drum up excitement among local philanthropists, whose help it still needs to reach a $300 million fundraising goal.

“The images show that we are planning a unique learning and research environment that nurtures collaboration and innovation and is sustainable in all senses,” Vanderbilt’s chancellor, Daniel Diermeier, said in a press release accompanying the renderings.

👩‍💻 The future graduate school will host 1,000 students in business, finance, AI, and computer science programs, with an “innovation hub” designed to bring startups, investors, and academia under one (likely solar-powered) roof. Billionaire developer Stephen Ross, who helped woo Vanderbilt to Florida and jumpstarted private fundraising efforts on the school’s behalf, has said that such a campus could ignite a new “Silicon Valley” in the region.

 💵 Vanderbilt locked in a deal last year to build the campus on seven prime acres in downtown West Palm Beach, on land donated by both the city and Palm Beach County that’s worth nearly $60 million. In return, Vanderbilt’s committing at least $2.4 billion of investment over 25 years (and $5.3 billion over 50 years). It has until 2029 to break ground, according to its agreement with local officials.

🚫 The West Palm school won’t have any of the collegiate gothic vibes of more northern campuses. Rather, its look will take inspiration from Floridian surroundings. Think: outdoor spaces, a rooftop garden, a building made of mass timber, and an arboretum of sabal palms, slash pines, and gumbo limbo trees. 🌴

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Big Boom Boca

🤼‍♂️ A four-way contest over who gets to rebuild the neighborhood around Boca Raton’s City Hall found its winner this week. After hours of debate, Boca city officials picked a 2.5 million-square-foot plan from developers Terra Group and Frisbie Group, setting the stage for a major transformation of 30 publicly-owned acres in Boca’s business district.

The winning plan calls for 1,129 residential units, a 150-room hotel, 250,000 square feet of office space, and 156,690 square feet of retail, along with a new City Hall, community center, and police station. To make the deal even sweeter, Terra and Frisbie, who will lease the site from the city, increased their annual rent offer from $4 million to $5.1 million and added a $10 million upfront payment, the South Florida Business Journal reported.

The city council unanimously backed the plan, at 201 West Palmetto Park Rd., calling it “community-centric” and the best fit for the area. It bested three other proposals, including one from Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross' firm, Related Ross, which came in second with a plan that leaned more heavily on building office space.

New Condo Status Check

Let’s check in (again) on some of Miami’s up-and-coming condo developments, shall we?

🥂 Indian Creek Residences & Yacht Cub, the 9-unit waterfront condo building on Miami’s Bay Harbor Islands, has buyer commitments for 80% of its units, developer Landau Properties said this week. Construction on the exclusive residences has also reached the topmost floor. And so have the prices. The last two available condos start at $11 million, the developer said. The property, where move-ins could begin at the end of the year, will include a private yacht club, six yacht slips and dockmaster concierge services.

🥂 Riva Residenze, a 36-unit waterfront tower in Fort Lauderdale branded by Italian yacht maker Riva, has secured five condo reservations, including one for a penthouse, according to Fernando de Nuñez y Lugones, CEO of Vertical Developments, the project’s co-developer.

Reservations are non-binding commitments, but are a sign of interest in the project, which began sales last month at price points that start at $3.5 million and climb to the double-digit millions for two 8,800-square-foot penthouses.

The buyers are entirely domestic, with some downsizing from homes in the region and others wealthy transplants from elsewhere in the U.S., de Nuñez y Lugones said, adding that price points like these would have been unthinkable in Broward County just five years ago.

“We see the demographics of South Florida changing because of the relocations of very important entities—Goldman, Citadel,” he said of the New York finance firms that have taken root in the area. “The average salaries of these corporate executives are three or four times higher than the average salaries we had in Florida before.”

Which is why he’s leaning hard into big-name luxury brands for his projects. There’s a Fendi-branded condo in Aventura, an Armani one in Pompano Beach, and for Fort Lauderdale—a city synonymous with yachting—a partnership with a high-end boatmaker just made sense, he said.

“Everyone that has achieved something in life, their number one dream is to have a Riva,” de Nuñez y Lugones said. “Riva has always been on their mind since they’ve seen James Bond 30 years ago.”

🥂Okay, one more: Elle Residences Miami, a fashion-branded condo tower with smaller units starting at $525,000, has buyer commitments for 33% of its residences, according to de Nuñez y Lugones. (Yes, his firm is co-developing this one, too.)

That number includes a mix of non-binding reservations and binding contracts, he said. The 450- to 845-square-foot condos have been selling at an average of $1,400 to $1,500 per square foot.

😲 Missed last week’s luxury condo status check? Find it here.

Yet Another Supertall Tower for Miami

How many supertall towers does Miami need? Well, apparently, at least one more.

Sonesta International Hotels, along with Mint Developers, are planning an $850 million, 82-story condo-hotel called The James Hotel & Residences, the hotel firm said in a press release.

This will be the first residential project for the James hotel brand, and will feature 336 furnished residences, with amenities like a private club and “snow and rain rooms.” Because nothing says ‘Miami luxury’ like experiencing winter indoors.

Sales for the units will start in the second quarter, Sonesta said.

The hotelier did not publicly cite the location of its project, though Florida YIMBY reported it will be at 231 East Flagler St., in Miami’s downtown.

That’s it for today!

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