Nuveen Seeking More Than $500M For Brickell Office Tower
Nuveen Real Estate is looking to sell 701 Brickell Ave. less than a year after it offloaded another nearby office building in Miami’s financial district.
Nuveen, the real estate investment arm of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America, is looking for more than $500M for the 685K SF office tower in the heart of Brickell. The property is around 92% occupied by high-profile tenants including Bank of America, Apollo Global Management, BlackRock and Point72 Asset Management.
JLL’s Miami-based capital markets team was tapped to market the property. Bloomberg first reported it was on the market.
The 33-story 701 Brickell Ave. was built in 1986 and underwent a $30M renovation in 2021 that included upgrades to the lobby, fitness center and conference rooms. The property has a 1,400-car parking garage, and the South Florida-based all-day café brand Pura Vida opened a 5K SF location at its base last year.
Nuveen acquired the waterfront property overlooking Brickell Key for $172M in November 2002, property records indicate. The firm didn’t respond to Bisnow’s request for comment.
A sale of 701 Brickell Ave. would be Nuveen’s second transaction in the market since October, when it sold 801 Brickell Ave. for around $250M. The 415K SF tower was 92% leased when it traded, and rents had grown from $60 per SF in 2018 to $120 per SF at the end of 2023. Nuveen paid $80.3M to acquire the property in 2002.
Brickell is Miami’s most expensive office market, with average asking rents at $102.39 per SF for Class-A space at the end of the first quarter, according to Cushman & Wakefield. Class-A rates were up 21.1% year-over-year at the end of the first quarter, and available office space at 701 Brickell Ave. is listed for $140 per SF online.
A source familiar with the listing said 701 Brickell Ave. has traditionally been a market leader for rents in the neighborhood, helping set benchmarks for what space can fetch in the competitive market.
The neighborhood just south of Downtown Miami has long been the epicenter for financial firms in the city, but it experienced a pandemic-era surge of activity as a popular destination for new-to-market companies setting up Florida outposts or headquarters.
Brickell Avenue’s 8% vacancy rate is just more than half the 15.4% vacancy rate for Miami-Dade County, according to Cushman & Wakefield.
The arrival of financial services companies, law firms and others has pushed rents to record levels in Miami. The last remaining space at 830 Brickell, a 57-story tower being built by OKO Group and Cain International, has asking rents approaching $200 per SF.
Rising rents and the lease-up of 830 Brickell have inspired a handful of proposals for new office towers in the neighborhood. Most recently, Santander Bank filed plans in February for a 40-story tower that would replace the 14-story building it owns at 1401 Brickell Ave.
Chicago-based Sterling Bay announced a month earlier that it was teaming up with Key International on plans for a 51-story office tower at 848 Brickell Ave.
There are lingering doubts in the market about how many of those projects would go vertical, especially in today's high-interest-rate environment. Developers traditionally look for anchor tenants to commit to space at a new tower before breaking ground, and the number of leases surpassing 50K SF has dropped significantly since the pandemic-era boom.
That dynamic is playing out at One Brickell City Centre, a proposed supertall office tower from Swire Properties and Related Cos. where demolition work has commenced, but construction is on hold while the developers search for a large tenant, The Wall Street Journal reported.
