Miami Market Update: An Emerging Hotspot for Office Transactions

As the pandemic’s effects still loom over the office sector, sales have continued to contract in most U.S. markets. Miami and Phoenix seem to be the exceptions, according to CommercialEdge data, recording year-on-year growth both in transaction volume, and average price per square foot. Blackstone’s $230 million Florida expansion in March made a significant contribution to those overall figures.

In the first quarter of 2021, Miami has seen $395 million in office transactions—comprising deals for properties of all sizes—almost six times the value reported in the same period in 2020. The average price per square foot rose to $305 from last year’s $193. Only in March, a total of roughly $360 million traded in the greater Miami area including Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach—across properties of 25,000 square feet and above­. From the twelve deals recorded by CommercialEdge, two thirds involved Class B assets.

Blackstone’s 330,000 square-foot, two-asset purchase in the Miami’s CBD was the biggest deal of the year in the area. Shorenstein Properties was the seller of the Class A portfolio, encompassing the 202,438-square-foot 2 MiamiCentral and the 131,000-square-foot 3 MiamiCentral. The newly constructed, LEED and Energy Star certified buildings were 98 percent occupied at the time of the trade.

In Fort Lauderdale, the largest office property to change hands was 1250 E. Hallandale Beach Blvd., a more than 180,000-square-foot Class B asset that dates back to the 1970s. Montreal-based Soliman Corp. paid $16.5 million for the building that was 80 percent occupied at the time of the transaction.

CommercialEdge covers 8M+ property records in the United States. View the latest CommercialEdge national monthly office report here. We included properties of 25,000+ square feet in our research.