A Utah investment firm made a big move in South Florida last week.

Bridge Investment Group — a private, Salt Lake City-based firm that has been operating since 1991 — through a subsidiary, acquired Sawgrass Technology Park, a 514K SF, 11-building office complex in Sunrise.

The 56-acre park, with Mediterranean architecture, is located in a busy suburban market, near the Sawgrass Mills mall and a new, $1.5B megadevelopment, Metropica.

Sawgrass Technology Park was built in 1975 and is 75% occupied. Nine tenants include Team Health, Cross Country Home Services and the city of Sunrise. Bridge plans to invest at least $5M and build a tenant-exclusive amenity facility with a café, a gym and a flexible lounge.

Kelly Kuykendall, a director of asset management for Bridge Investment Group, told Bisnow it was a rare value-add opportunity in a growing market.

"Bridge is always looking to grow our footprint across the major markets in Florida," Kuykendall said. "South Florida is a prime environment for office investment right now."

The Sawgrass Park submarket currently boasts the lowest vacancy rate in Broward County at 5.3%. There's no new construction there and limited speculative development, even though mixed-use developments are going up nearby. That bodes well for Bridge, Kuykendall said. She added that Bridge bought more than 6M SF of office space nationally in 2018 alone.

"Bridge is an expert in placemaking and has a proven track record of creating collaborative environments that appeal to different work styles," she said. "What Bridge buys and the final product we produce are completely different. We have a proven strategy for renovating buildings so they complement the work-life blend trend, and we will implement that vision at Sawgrass Technology Park."