Coral Gables Office Building Trades at Loss Despite Hot Market
By Julia Echikson March 28, 2022 5:47 pm
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Miami may be hot, but one office building in Coral Gables traded at a loss.
BEA Equities dropped $24.7 million for 2990 Ponce last week, property records show. That’s $720,000 less than what the seller, TA Realty, paid for it in 2014.
The six-story building sits along Coral Gables’ main drag at 2990 Ponce De Leon Boulevard, just south of the Ponce Circle Park. Built in 2012, the 128,047-square-foot property offers 57,790 square feet for offices and 6,617 square feet for retail on the ground floor as well as a rooftop lounge.
The reason for the discounted price remains unclear. The Boston-based seller did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither did its brokers, CBRE’s Christian Lee and Amy Julian, nor the buyer.
South Florida’s office investment and leasing markets have remained strong, despite COVID-19 — in no small part due to an influx of Northern companies and developers. While Coral Gables recorded a negative absorption rate of 39,000 square feet in 2021, its average office asking rent remained high at $43.66 a foot.
The total dollar for office investment sales more than quadrupled to $3.2 billion in 2021, from a year prior, accounting for 10.3 million square feet in deals, according to Newmark.
The Coral Gables purchase marks BEA Equities’ second office acquisition in the Miami area. The Mexico-based firm, led by Benjamin Assa Cojab, bought the Related Group’s former headquarters in Downtown Miami for $24 million last summer. The five-story building is now leased to law firm Polsinelli, and Mastro’s steakhouse.
Earlier this month, Westside Capital bought an eight-story office building, also on Ponce De Leon Boulevard, for $14.1 million.
Julia Echikson can be reached at jechikson@commercialobserver.com.
