Black Lion JV Pays $82M for Miami Office Asset

Lincoln Place is Starwood Capital’s former headquarters. Image courtesy of CommercialEdge

A joint venture between Black Lion Investment Group and Massa Investment Group has acquired Lincoln Place, a 140,000-square-foot office building in Miami Beach, Fla., for $82 million. The seller was Nightingale Properties, according to CommercialEdge data. Newmark arranged the transaction, which marks Black Lion’s largest deal to date.

Nightingale had purchased the Class A property in 2016 for $80 million, the same source shows. The acquisition had involved a $62.3 million loan from Granite Point Mortgage Trust.

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Completed in 2002, the eight-story building served as headquarters for Starwood Capital and has been primarily vacant since the former anchor tenant left in 2022. The property also includes 30,000 square feet of retail space and a 499-space parking garage. The new ownership plans to implement a multimillion-dollar capital improvement plan.

Located at 1601 Washington Ave., Lincoln Place is off Collins Avenue and roughly 8 miles from downtown Miami Beach. It is also within walking distance of the Lincoln Road mall, in a walkable area featuring various retail options.

Miami’s office market stays strong

Newmark Senior Managing Directors Jeremy Hakala and Clay Sidner brokered the transaction. Black Lion Founder & President Robert Rivani stated in prepared remarks that the acquisition was in part driven by corporate migration to South Florida from markets such as Los Angeles, New York and Chicago.

Miami was the most expensive office market in the South with an average listing rate of $46.14 per square foot as of August, marking a 3.5 percent drop year-over-year, according to a recent CommercialEdge report. However, the metro had the lowest vacancy rate in the region at 11.6 percent, the same research shows.

In terms of transactions, Miami registered a volume of $408 million in the first eight months of the year, with assets trading at an average of $251 per square foot. The price was the second-highest among southern markets after Austin, Texas, ($379 per square foot), and more than 30 percent higher than the national average of $193 per square foot.