Swire Seeks Buyer for Miami Supertall Office Project After Pre-Leasing Struggle

After denying that a landmark Miami project was for sale last May, Swire Properties is bowing to lacklustre pre-leasing demand and seeking a buyer for the office development planned as the city’s tallest skyscraper upon completion.

The Hong Kong builder had teamed up with New York-based The Related Companies on One Brickell City Centre, which would provide 1.51 million square feet (140,284 square metres) of commercial space in Miami’s Brickell financial hub. Swire has appointed CBRE to sell the project’s sites at 700 Brickell Avenue and 799 Brickell Plaza, Bloomberg reported this week.

Despite a tech- and finance-led relocation wave that has helped lift South Florida to the top among US office markets in terms of rent growth, Swire struggled to find enough tenants to fill the planned 68-storey tower, according to the Bloomberg account.

“The current office market has been challenging and the pre-leasing for that specific scheme has not materialised in the way that we had hoped,” Swire Properties USA president Henry Bott told the news agency.

Related Tie-Up Dropped

Located at 700 Brickell Avenue at the junction of SE 8th Street, One Brickell City Centre was scheduled for completion in 2028 and envisioned a 1,040 foot (317 metre) office tower with floor plates measuring between 32,000 and 50,000 square foot, the largest ever to be approved in Miami.

Swire acquired the 1.55-acre project site for $64 million in 2013, with the company joining with Related to unveil plans in 2022 as the inaugural collaboration between the two builders. The building was to directly connect to Miami’s Metromover light rail transit system and feature outdoor terraces on every floor, a rooftop helipad and 360-degree views of Biscayne Bay, the Miami River and downtown Miami.

Swire wholly owns the sites and the partnership with Related has expired, Bloomberg said. Swire did not reply to emailed requests for comment from Mingtiandi this week.

The reversal comes as Miami-Dade County’s office market led the nation in 12-month rent growth at the end of 2024, achieving a 4.8 percent rise, according to Colliers. Fourth-quarter rents stood at $54.79 per square foot, good for the third-highest rate nationally, while vacancy dipped 0.5 points from the prior quarter to 9.1 percent, the consultancy said in a report released Thursday.

Swire Properties, the real estate arm of centuries-old trading group Swire Pacific, has its US headquarters in Miami and began developing residences on the man-made island of Brickell Key as far back as the 1970s. Swire plans to put the funds raised from the sale of the skyscraper project into a Brickell Key development close to where the group is building luxury Mandarin Oriental-branded condos and a hotel, according to Bloomberg.

Other Asset Sales

One Brickell City Centre constitutes the second phase of Swire’s $1.05 billion Brickell City Centre project, with the company having opened the first element of the 4.9 million square foot mixed‐use development in 2016.

The master-planned community includes a 496,508 square foot shopping centre, 260,000 square feet of office space across the Two and Three Brickell City Centre towers and the 352-key East Miami hotel and serviced apartments, as well as two condo towers and a 2,600-space underground car park.

Swire sold the pair of office towers to Santa Monica-based Northwood Investors for $163 million in 2020, and then sold East Miami to a joint venture between funds managed by Honolulu-based Trinity Real Estate Investments and New York-headquartered Certares Real Estate Management for $174 million the next year.

Swire continues to manage the two office buildings and the hotel, as well as operate the hospitality property. It retains a 62.93 stake in the shopping centre, with US mall REIT Simon Property Group holding a 25 percent interest and privately held Bal Harbour Shops owning the remaining 12.07 percent.