Swire Properties Sells Site Of Aborted Brickell Office Tower For $212M
A site approved for a supertall office tower in the heart of Miami's Financial District has traded hands for $211.5M.
Hong Kong-based Swire Properties sold the One Brickell City Centre site to Miami-based The Melo Group in an all-cash deal has the potential to be increased to $221.5M, the parties announced.
“This transaction was executed between both companies with remarkable collaboration and precision. We extend our sincere gratitude to Swire Properties, its president, Henry Bott, and the entire team for their professionalism and collaboration in ensuring a seamless process,” Melo Group principal Martin Melo said in a statement.
Swire paid the Brickell family $64.1M for the 2.83-acre site at 700-799 Brickell Ave. in 2013, The Real Deal reported.
By 2022, Swire had partnered with Related Cos. — then led by Stephen Ross, who has since branched off with his own firm, Related Ross — revealed its plans for a 1,000-foot-tall office tower that would span 1.6M SF. If completed, it would have been the tallest office building in Florida.
Swire President Henry Bott told Bisnow in July 2023, two months after the developers started demolition at the site, that One Brickell City Centre is “the best site with the best partner in the best market in the U.S. right now.”
“We're pretty confident that the project can proceed and that we're not going to struggle in the ways that perhaps other projects do in the U.S.,” he said at the time.
The developers scrapped the would-be 1,000-foot-tall office building this year after failing to land an anchor tenant and hired CBRE to handle the sale of the property, Bloomberg reported. Robert Given, Troy Ballard, Brad Capas and James Quinn represented Swire in the deal.
“The current office market has been challenging and the pre-leasing for that specific scheme has not materialized in the way that we had hoped,” Henry Bott, president of Swire, told Bloomberg in January.
Swire said the proceeds will help fund its other local project, The Residences at Mandarin Oriental in Brickell Key, a spokesperson said in a statement.
“We are delighted to have concluded a successful transaction with the Melo Group,” the spokesperson said. “Our priority is The Residences at Mandarin Oriental, Miami, where we have recently surpassed $1 billion in sales.”
The Melo Group, led by Jose Luis Ferreira de, Carlos and Martin Melo, is developing a two-tower, 62-story luxury condo project in Edgewater called the Aria Reserve, where penthouse units were listed for up to $12M. One of the penthouse units in the north tower went under contract last year for $5.2M, PROFILEmiami reported.
