Franklin Street Welcomes New Tenant at Miami Office

5505 Waterford. Image courtesy of Avison Young

Franklin Street Properties has inked a 53,119-square-foot lease with Unique Vacations, an affiliate of Jamaican all-inclusive resort company Sandals, at 5505 Waterford, a Class A office property totaling 212,619 square feet in Miami’s Airport submarket.

Avison Young worked on behalf of the tenant, while CBRE represented the landlord. By Franklin Street Properties securing another long-term tenant alongside housing Lennar Homes’ headquarters—which spans the top six floors totaling 156,000 square feet through a 16-year lease signed in 2019—the former Burger King’s headquarters is now fully leased.

The Avison Young team included Principal & Miami Managing Director Donna Abood, Vice President Joe Abood and Senior Associate Peyton Dowd, with CBRE’s Executive Vice President Gordon Messinger on the other side of the lease negotiation.

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The nine-story office building completed in 2002 fetched $48 million a year later, when Franklin Street Properties acquired the property, CommercialEdge data shows. The mid-rise on nearly 10 acres at 5505 Blue Lagoon Drive features 24,874-square-foot floorplates and 638 parking spots with a ratio of 3 spaces per 1,000 square feet.

5505 Waterford is within 3 miles of Miami International Airport and offers major street exposure to State Route 836 and 959. Downtown Miami is less than 8 miles east.

Demand for office space

The Airport submarket is home to several notable tenants, such as Burger King, Visa, Subway, FedEx, L’Oreal and Airbus. Demand for office space within the submarket is mostly aimed at the Blue Lagoon area, where available space for similarly large leases is becoming rare. This can be counterbalanced by the development pipeline, that is expected to bring 1.9 million square feet of mixed-use space to the area, said Joe Abood, vice president at Avison Young, in prepared remarks.

Miami’s office sector is showing signs of definite recovery. Based on Avison Young insights, total leasing volume in 2021 reached 4.3 million square feet, a 30.3 percent jump, when compared to the leasing activity registered in 2020. What’s more, after three years of negative net absorption, Miami ended last year in positive territory, with 434,713 square feet, totaling 0.8% of the existing stock.