Jordan Rathlev of Related Ross: 5 Questions

Already the largest office owner in Downtown West Palm Beach, Fla., Related Ross keeps rapidly expanding its portfolio.

Earlier this week, Stephen Ross’s company announced another landmark lease with Wells Fargo’s plan to move its wealth-management division from San Francisco to Related Ross’ One Flagler in West Palm.

The company is also developing 10 CityPlace, where artificial intelligence firm ServiceNow pre-leased 200,000 square feet, as well as 15 CityPlace, where Cleveland Clinic’s 125,000-square-foot lease makes it the anchor tenant. And in 2025, Related Ross acquired One Clearlake, an 18-story tower at 250 South Australian Avenue in West Palm Beach.

“CityPlace has been able to create this amazing neighborhood where employees want to go,” Jordan Rathlev, executive vice president at Related Ross, told Commercial Observer. “And because of that, employers are willing to open up new offices, expand their footprints, and make a bet that people want to be in the office.”

CO recently caught up with Rathlev to talk about how Related Ross has been shaking up the office market in West Palm Beach and all of South Florida.

The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

Commercial Observer: Related Ross has a lot going on in the downtown office market. Give a quick overview.

Jordan Rathlev: It’s exciting for us, obviously. One Flagler opened in 2025, fully leased at this point. We’re underway with the $130 million full renovation of Phillips Point, which is nearly a fully leased office building today. When we’re done, it will be effectively a brand-new building. And 10 to 15 CityPlace is fully underway now. We’re about 65 percent pre-leased, with some of the largest leases ever done in South Florida in commercial office.

The ServiceNow lease is over 200,000 square feet, and the Cleveland Clinic lease is close to 125,000 square feet. What we’ve been most excited about is not only the quality and caliber of tenants, but the diversity of industry base.

ServiceNow was the sort of tenant that Palm Beach County had been trying to attract for decades. What changed? Why are these tenants coming here now?

One, you think about the political economic headwinds you read about in California and New York and Illinois. Those are real.

In California, they’re talking about a ballot initiative that’s called a billionaire’s tax. Massachusetts recently passed a millionaire’s tax, where there’s incremental taxation above a certain level. Illinois is doing the same thing. 

Here in Florida, we’re debating whether we cut property taxes. So the economic reality of having a business located in Florida has become even more attractive. I think the state is starting to do a much better job of promoting itself as a pro-business state.

With the ServiceNow deal, you saw the state come in a very meaningful way relative to some incentives that were incorporated in the relocation. One of the knocks that the state had always had was there wasn’t a great talent pipeline here. But ServiceNow did their research relative to what engineering and talent was here already. They realized that talent was here. They just historically hadn’t stayed because the job growth for their kind of skill set wasn’t here yet.

ServiceNow and Cleveland Clinic aren’t scheduled to occupy their space until late 2027. That seems like something new – you’ve got large tenants committing two years in advance.

I think the reality is we’re not going to be spec developers, but the idea of having significant pre-leasing and significant anchor tenants is relatively new to this market. 

Five years ago, when we started kind of in a more robust effort on the commercial office side, your average size of tenant was 5,000 to 7,500 square feet. Today, it’s grown over 10,000 square feet. 

The Cleveland Clinic lease and the ServiceNow lease are two of the largest commercial office leases ever in South Florida. So it’s exciting to see that it’s not smaller footprints. This has really grown to regional headquarter locations and significant footprints by very significant national companies.

How long do you expect this momentum to keep going? Is it going to become the new normal that we’ve got 200,000-square-foot office tenants coming to Downtown West Palm Beach?

The state of Florida is attracting over a thousand people a day, the vast majority of those are coming to South Florida. As companies think about their future growth and their future ability to attract talent, South Florida’s on the top of the list. And I think for tenants of significant scale — that are thinking about where their next regional or a second headquarters location is going to be needed — West Palm Beach is going to be right up there in the mix, and I have no doubt that we will see further growth in tenant size that’s in excess of 100,000 square feet.

We still feel it’s early days relative to attraction of companies that want to set up a significant presence in and around Downtown West Palm Beach and broader Palm Beach County. So I definitely think over the next couple of years, you’re gonna read at least about two, three, four more significant tenants that have a significant presence here. 

What kind of rents are you commanding at 10 and 15 City Place?

One Flagler helped re-establish the market, and in this downtown that was a very unique building. In Philips Point, with the renovation underway, and with 10 and 15 CityPlace being the two newest buildings in the downtown, all three are now commanding rents in excess of $100 a foot.

We are fortunate given the amount of buildings we own downtown. We have a differentiation of product type for some legacy buildings and the newer buildings that allow us optionality for tenants regarding pricing. We do have stuff that’s lower price, we have stuff that’s higher price, and kind of anywhere in between. But in the new product, $100 triple net is where the market is.

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