Silicon Valley Bank Signs First Miami Lease At Four Seasons Tower

Silicon Valley Bank has signed its first direct lease in South Florida, furthering its quest to finance the burgeoning tech scene in Miami.

The bank, owned by parent company SVB Financial Group, signed a 9K SF lease for the majority of the 15th floor of The Four Seasons Hotel and Tower in Brickell. The office space in the 1.5M SF, 70-story mixed-use building is slated to be delivered by 2023.

Cresa Partners represented Silicon Valley Bank in the deal. CBRE Executive Vice President Gordon Messinger is the leasing agent representing owner and developer Millennium Partners. 

“They plan on coming to the market [and] helping with local technology,” Messinger told Bisnow Friday.

SVB recently acquired Boston Private Financial Holdings, which was subleasing space at the Four Seasons. Messinger said with the direct lease, SVB will move people out of the building to construct a redesigned office that "looks like a Silicon Valley Bank and has that look and feel."

The Four Seasons Hotel and Tower has 250K SF of Class-A office space that is now fully leased with the SVB deal and a 2,350 SF lease Millennium Partners also signed this week with Boston-based MFS Investment Management. The building also has 222 hotel rooms, 84 condominiums, 186 residential units, a 40K SF Equinox and the EDGE Steak & Bar restaurant.

SVB and MFS represent two more new-to-market tenants and tech and financial firms continue to seek a presence in Miami, especially Brickell. Nearly three-quarters of all leasing activity in the second quarter was by out-of-town companies, according to CBRE.

Much of that focus has been in Brickell, which saw office asking rents rise 42% between June 2021 and this year, Bisnow previously reported. An SVB white paper referred to the neighborhood as "The Wall Street of the South," calling it a hub of venture capital funding coming from Latin America, especially for startups at the intersection of finance and technology.