Tag Archive for: related companies

Palm Beach County Suburban Office Market Heats-Up

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Downtown West Palm Beach’s office market is thriving—but rising rents are making it harder for some longtime tenants to keep a foothold in the city core.

The surge is largely fueled by billionaire developer Stephen Ross, whose aggressive investment and development strategy has helped transform downtown West Palm into one of South Florida’s most competitive office markets. His projects have drawn a steady stream of high-profile tenants and helped accelerate the city and county’s long-term growth vision.

That momentum, however, has driven rents sharply higher across downtown, including in buildings Ross does not own. As a result, some established tenants are being priced out and are relocating to suburban areas of Palm Beach County, where new office development is beginning to follow demand.

One notable example is law firm Lytal, Reiter, Smith, Ivey & Fronrath, which last year moved most of its operations from the Northbridge Centre in downtown West Palm—where it had leased space for roughly 40 years—to Palm Beach Gardens. The firm cited renewal proposals that were several times higher than its previous rent, reflecting what some tenants describe as unsustainable downtown pricing.

According to local brokers, asking rents in excess of $100 per square foot are prompting more companies to explore suburban alternatives. That shift is helping spark new office construction outside the urban core.

In Palm Beach Gardens, Gatsby Florida—an affiliate of Gatsby Enterprises—is planning The Modern, an eight-story, 220,000-square-foot office building with a six-story parking garage at 11200 RCA Center Drive. The project, expected to deliver in 2027, is being positioned in part to attract out-of-state firms and executives relocating to South Florida. Gatsby acquired the site for $17.5 million in 2022.

Meanwhile, in Boca Raton, construction is underway on The Aletto, a two-building office campus totaling 140,000 square feet that is already approximately 60 percent pre-leased.

Developers and brokers say these projects reflect growing demand for high-quality suburban office space that offers modern amenities without downtown pricing.

Ross, who launched Related Ross after stepping back from New York-based Related Companies in 2024, has made downtown West Palm the centerpiece of his development focus. His portfolio includes roughly a dozen office buildings in various stages, along with residential, hotel, and mixed-use projects.

By leveraging longstanding relationships—particularly within the financial services sector—Ross quickly filled many of his office properties with out-of-state tenants. More recently, his firm has also pushed to position Palm Beach County as an emerging technology hub.

While downtown West Palm continues to gain national attention, the ripple effects of its success are reshaping the broader county office market—creating new opportunities, but also new challenges, for tenants navigating the region’s rapid growth.

JP Morgan Chase Inks Office Deal In West Palm

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J.P. Morgan Chase is the latest financial player to plant a flag in West Palm Beach.

The banking giant signed a lease at Related Companies’ 360 Rosemary office building, the landlord announced. The square footage was not disclosed.

Situated on seven acres near the intersection of PGA and RCA boulevards, the eight-story office building will feature column-free, 25,000-square-foot floor plates; fine dining restaurant; 7,000 square feet of quick-serve restaurants and retail, fitness center; conference center, rooftop patio and 838 covered garage parking spots along with EV charging stations. PGA Tower’s offices will feature 10-foot, floor-to-ceiling windows with hurricane-resistant glass, full generator back-ups and building top signage.

Source:  Commercial Observer

Palm Beach County Businesses Holding On CRE Footprints: Survey

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More than a quarter of executives of businesses in Palm Beach County expect to expand their commercial real estate footprints this year, according to a survey released Thursday.

Now for the 700,000-square-foot question: Will that demand, combined with a continued inflow of out-of-state companies and workers, be enough to fill all the new office space going up in Downtown West Palm Beach?

The Business Development Board of Palm Beach County, a public-private economic development organization, and financial services firm Kaufman Rossin polled 544 CEOs, business owners and executives.

Fully 65 percent of respondents said they’ll keep their current commercial real estate footprints in 2024, while 29 percent said they will lease or buy additional space. Just 6 percent expect to pull back on their real estate occupancy.

The trends around employee counts look even more optimistic. Some 55 percent of respondents said they plan to expand their payrolls in 2024, while 40 percent say they’ll maintain their current staffing counts. Just 5 percent anticipated reductions in headcounts.

South Florida’s job growth has helped keep the region’s office market from following the rest of the nation into distress territory. Office vacancy in Palm Beach County was 11.6 percent at the end of 2023, and rents are rising, according to Cushman & Wakefield. (By contrast, Manhattan’s overall office vacancy rate was 22.8 percent at year’s end, the brokerage reported.)

Palm Beach County’s overall asking rents rose to $46.21 per square foot, up 5.9 percent from a year earlier, Cushman & Wakefield reported. Class A rents rose 4.2 percent to $52.43. Class B product recorded a 5 percent annual increase, closing out the year at an average asking rent of $41.12 per foot.

Downtown rents jumped 11.5 percent in 2023, to $64.90 per square foot. Class A space in the submarket recorded a 14 percent increase during the same period, up to $77.27.

Amid the burgeoning demand, Related Companies has embarked on an office building spree. The completions of 300 Banyan and One Flagler will bring 215,000 square feet of new office space to Downtown West Palm Beach, and an additional 585,000 square feet are under construction in the submarket, Cushman & Wakefield said.

However, despite the job growth, Palm Beach County employers also don’t expect a mass return to offices. According to the survey, 68.2 percent of respondents work fully on site now, and 67.4 percent expect that situation to hold in two years. Meanwhile, 13.5 percent of Palm Beach County employers say they’re now fully remote, and 14.2 percent expect to be working entirely outside their offices in two years.

Since the pandemic, the in-migration of jobs and employers to South Florida has offset the trend toward working from home.

“There has been a transformation over the past five years with the buildup of industry and influx of business and population,” Rick Slater, Kaufman Rossin’s managing principal for Palm Beach and Broward counties, said in a statement.

Growth comes with some downsides, too, including traffic congestion and soaring housing costs, both cited as challenges by respondents to the survey.

 

Source:  Commercial Observer

A Tale Of Two Office Markets: Broward Vacancies Rose While Palm Beach County’s Decline

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New office leasing activity is on an upward trajectory in Broward and Palm Beach, but vacancy rates remain in the high double-digits in both counties, according to a recently released report.

Palm Beach County fared better than Broward in filling up vacant spaces in the fourth quarter of 2021, as well as boosting landlords’ confidence to raise rents. Palm Beach County also outperformed Miami-Dade County, where the overall vacancy rate hit 16 percent in the final quarter of 2021.

Broward landlords, on the other hand, were forced to provide more tenant concessions and space improvements, as new projects that came online affected vacancy rates, according to the report by Cushman & Wakefield.

Broward County

The vacancy rate in Broward jumped to 16.9 percent in 2021’s fourth quarter, compared to 14.7 percent during the same period of the previous year. The increase was due to new Class A office space coming online, including at The Main Las Olas mixed-use project (pictured above) in downtown Fort Lauderdale, according to the report. The project’s 387,402-square-foot office tower is more than 50 percent leased.

Still, new leases totaling 2.4 million square feet helped soften the vacancy blow in Broward during the last quarter of 2021, according to the report. Online pet retailer Chewy signed the tri-county region’s biggest lease of last year, inking a deal for 221,597-square-feet for the company’s new headquarters in a new two-building office project in Plantation developed by Midtown Capital Partners.

Most new tenants flocked to Broward’s suburban office submarkets in the fourth quarter, with only 20 percent of new leases in the Fort Lauderdale commercial business district, Cushman & Wakefield found. However, the number of new leases was not enough to offset tenants vacating spaces during the last 18 months, the report shows.

As a result, the overall average asking rent dipped to $35.30 in the most recent quarter, from $35.94 a square foot in 2020’s fourth quarter, according to the report.

“Landlords in both Class A and Class B assets were more aggressive with pricing, while offering more concessions, as well as higher tenant improvement amounts to make tenants sign deals,” the report states.

Palm Beach County

Palm Beach County’s office market outperformed Miami-Dade and Broward when it came to raising occupancy. The county’s overall vacancy rate ended the latest quarter at 13.2 percent, compared to 14.5 percent during the same period of 2020, according to the report.

New leasing activity jumped 77 percent, year over year, with tenants moving into more than 2.2 million square feet of new office space, the report shows. The Palm Beach market had a total positive absorption of 528,000 square feet in 2021, the highest since 2016.

As a result, landlords raised the average asking rent by 3.8 percent to $39.86 a square foot in the most recent quarter. In 2020’s fourth quarter, Palm Beach office tenants were paying an average rent of $38.40 a square foot. In the county’s commercial business district, which includes downtown West Palm Beach, Class A rents hit $65.42 a square foot, a 6.7 percent bump compared to the fourth quarter of 2020.

Palm Beach County’s office market performance likely fueled bullish investor activity, as a number of significant office deals closed last year, including a slate of acquisitions in West Palm Beach by developer Stephen Ross. On one of the sites, acquired for $20.1 million in July, Ross’ Related Companies is building the 25-story One Flagler, where two financial firms and a Greek restaurant have signed leases.

 

Source:  The Real Deal

Stephen Ross’s One Flagler Office Tower In West Palm Preserves 100-Year-Old Church, Scores Tenants

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In a modern-meets-classic project, Stephen Ross’ latest downtown West Palm Beach office tower will rise next to a nearly 100-year-old church that will be preserved.

Ross’ Related Companies embarked on the 25-story One Flagler, where two financial firms and a Greek restaurant signed leases. It will be on the western portion of a 2.5-acre site at the foot of the Royal Park Bridge and overlooking the Lake Worth Lagoon.

Private equity firm Siris Capital will move into One Flagler from nearby Phillips Point, also owned by Related. First Republic Bank will open a retail branch and office space at One Flagler, Gopal Rajegowda, partner at Related Southeast, told The Real Deal.

Chef Costas Spiliadis’ Greek seafood restaurant Estiatorio Milos, with its nearest location in Miami Beach, will open in a roughly 10,000-square-foot space on the ground floor and second level, with waterfront views, Rajegowda said.

The 275,000-square-foot One Flagler will be built west of the First Church of Christ Scientist and include a garage partly on the first floors of the tower and partly jutting out and rising eight stories, Rajegowda said.

Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s David Childs, One Flagler will have floor-to-glass windows, according to a news release and project renderings.

By contrast, the church has a Classical Revival architectural style and was built in 1928. It was designed by architects Horace Trumbauer and Julian Abele, and will remain open.

The eastern half of the site will be preserved as green space with the roughly 1-acre public park named after Abele, a prominent Black architect according to the release.

 

Source: The Real Deal

CityPlace Tower Trades For $175 Million

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Related Cos. acquired the CityPlace Tower office building in downtown West Palm Beach for $175 million.

CPT Equity LLC, an affiliate of W.R. Berkley Corp., sold the 303,519-square-foot office tower at 525 Okeechobee Blvd. to 525 Okeechobee LLC, an affiliate of New York-based the Related Cos. The price equated to $577 per square foot.

CityPlace Tower last traded for $150 million in 2014.

Tenants at CityPlace Tower include Cleveland Clinic, Carlton Fields, Comvest Partners, Greenspoon Marder, Marcum LLP, Shutts & Bowen, and Cresset Wealth Advisors. A recent online listing by broker Tower Commercial Real Estate said 63,080 square feet in the building was available for lease, with rent ranging from $51 to $55 per square foot.

The site has benefitted from its close proximity to the Brightline passenger rail station, which will connect with Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, Aventura and Orlando once service resumes.

 

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