PREI Enters Brickell District with $185M Office Tower Purchase

April 26, 2013

The 30-story, Class A Sabadell Financial Center located in the upscale Brickell Financial District of Miami has recently traded owners. The buyer, Prudential Real Estate Investors—acting on behalf of institutional investors in its flagship core open-end commingled fund—paid $185 million for the high-profile property also known as 1111 Brickell.

By Georgiana Mihaila, Associate Editor

The 30-story, Class A Sabadell Financial Center located in the upscale Brickell Financial District of Miami recently traded owners. The buyer, Prudential Real Estate Investors—acting on behalf of institutional investors in its flagship core open-end commingled fund—paid $185 million for the high-profile property, also known as 1111 Brickell.

PREI, the real estate investment, management and advisory arm of Prudential Financial Inc., purchased the tower from Spain’s Testa Inmuebles en Renta, which paid $132 million for the building back in 2002, the South Florida Business Journal reports. Testa is the property-rental arm of Sacyr Vallehermoso, one of Europe’s largest commercial real estate and construction conglomerates. This latest acquisition reflects PREI’s strategy to capture opportunities for investors created by the neighborhood’s attributes.

Sabadell Financial Center, located right between Brickell Avenue and Brickell Bay Drive, is one of Miami’s most desirable and best placed office buildings. Originally built in 2000, the 523,000 square-foot building is 85 percent leased to a mix of prominent financial services companies and major law firms.

The building is connected to the 22-story JW Marriott Hotel, which is not part of the acquisition but serves as a convenient amenity for the office tower. Sabadell Financial Center recently commenced the process of attaining LEED certification for existing buildings with an objective to achieve an Energy Star 25 rating and a Silver Certification.

PREI has disclosed plans of enhancing the property through additional capital investments designed to attract new multinational and regional tenants, while also retaining existing occupants.

“With Miami growing in stature among the top business and financial hubs in the Americas, the timing was ripe for PREI’s entrance into the Brickell market,” said Cathy Marcus, managing director at Prudential Real Estate Investors and senior portfolio manager for the firm’s core open-ended equity commingled real estate strategy. “With a location in the sought-after Brickell district and an enviable tenant base, Sabadell Financial Center is a perfect fit with our investment strategy.”

Miami-based Blanca Commercial Real Estate will be spearheading the leasing and marketing efforts for the 30-story tower.