Insurer Plans Office-to-Industrial Redo South of Miami

In another example of suburban office space falling out of favor, an insurer wants to tear down an office complex in unincorporated Miami-Dade County and replace it with industrial space.

Insurance and risk management firm Assurant filed the plans with Miami-Dade County to rezone the 68.2-acre site at 11222 Quail Roost Drive along Florida’s Turnpike from the office park district to industrial light manufacturing district.

The property currently houses nearly 500,000 square feet of office space built in the 1980s and 1990s. Assurant wants to tear down the aging offices and build eight warehouse buildings totaling nearly 1.4 million square feet.

“The property’s proximity to the Florida Turnpike makes it ideally suited for the proposed redevelopment,” attorney Tracy R. Slavens wrote in the application.

Assurant is in the process of moving out of the office campus. The company last year signed a 78,000-square-foot office lease in Miami’s Waterford Business District and is expected to move into that space in June.

The Atlanta-based company has been trying to sell the property since 2023. Miami-Dade County was about to pay $160 million for the campus, but that deal fell apart after two appraisers valued the price about 30 percent above market value.

Jeff Ostrowski can be reached at jostrowski@commercialobserver.com.