At least four office towers are planned in Miami’s Brickell financial district. Some developers are looking for anchor tenants for their properties before construction begins.
Meanwhile, Santander Bank continues to make progress.
Courtesy of Santander Bank
Santander Bank plans to replace its 14-story office building in Brickell with a 1.6 million square foot tower.
The Madrid-based bank will begin demolishing its Brickell office building in the next few weeks to make way for a new 41-story tower, it announced Wednesday. The new tower will replace a 14-story building at 1401 Brickell Ave. owned by Santander. The redevelopment was first mooted in February.
The planned 1.6 million square foot tower will house approximately 800,000 square feet of offices, with the remainder of the space divided between retail, common areas and a 1,496-space garage.
Plans submitted to the Miami Urban Development Review Board in February called for seven dining areas totaling 10,000 square feet, including a ground-floor cafe and patio restaurants along one side of the 13-story parking garage, above which a multi-story club would be built.
A company controlled by Santander paid $114 million for the existing office tower and 2-acre site in 2008, land records show. The 237,000-square-foot office houses more than 650 Santander employees, mostly from the private banking division, who will move to temporary offices on Brickell Avenue and in Coconut Grove during construction.
A Santander spokesman declined to comment on the announcement, but the company said demolition would begin “in the next few weeks” and the project would be “completed over the next few years.”
“The Miami market remains an important connection point between North America, Latin America and Europe, and Santander remains committed to having a presence in this international technology and financial center,” the company said in a press release.
Santander will occupy only a portion of the office space in the completed 233-meter-tall tower, designed by New York-based Handel Architects. Brickell-based Rilea Group will coordinate construction.
Courtesy of Santander Bank
Seven catering areas are planned on the ground floor and on the parking plinth.
If demolition begins, it would be the second Brickell site since May 2023 to be cleared to make way for a new office tower.
However, it is possible, if not likely, that this will be the first new tower to go vertical since 830 Brickell. The 57-story tower, which began construction in 2020, quickly leased up during the pandemic, prompting other developers to eye the neighborhood for new construction.
Related Cos. and Swire Properties have begun demolition at 700 Brickell Ave. in May 2023 to make way for a planned supertall office tower called One Brickell City Centre.
However, there are doubts as to whether the tower will actually be built. The Wall Street Journal reported in March that Swire was considering selling the 4-acre site because it was having trouble finding a tenant for the project. Swire denied the report, but construction on the tower has not yet begun.
Local developer Key International has partnered with Chicago-based Sterling Bay to propose a 51-story tower at 848 Brickell Avenue. JLL has been hired to lease the property and the developer is waiting until a lead tenant is found before moving forward with the project.
Citadel, the Ken Griffin-led hedge fund that announced a move from Chicago to Miami in June 2022, is also slowly moving forward with plans for a new headquarters at 1201 Brickell Bay Drive that will include a hotel and retail space.
Citadel will take up 130,000 square feet at 830 Brickell while it builds its new headquarters. The tower, developed by OKO Group and Cain International, was originally scheduled for completion in 2022, but tenants are only now building out their spaces and are expected to move in by year’s end.
