Grover Corlew has paid $69.7 million for the 200 East Broward office tower in downtown Fort Lauderdale, picking up the 21-story Class A building from Banyan Street Capital at a price well below what the seller paid for it less than a decade ago. The firm now plans to pour $20 million into renovating the property over the next two years.
The deal closed this week, according to Connect CRE, which reported that Banyan Street Capital sold the tower to Grover Corlew in a transaction that adds to the buyer's growing footprint across Broward County. The sale was also confirmed by South Florida Business Journal, which likewise reported that Grover Corlew bought the tower from Banyan Street.
According to Commercial Observer, the 21-story tower features 235,211 square feet of office space and was built in 1991. A separate report from citybiz describes the building, located at the corner of Broward Boulevard and Southeast Third Avenue, as a 227,158-square-foot Class A office tower — a figure that doesn't match Commercial Observer's count, and the discrepancy isn't resolved in either report. Commercial Observer also noted the 447,253-square-foot property was 75 percent occupied at the time the sale was reported.
A Discount From the 2017 Price Tag
Banyan Street Capital and Oaktree Capital Management bought the asset for $81.5 million in 2017, the same Commercial Observer report notes, meaning this week's sale represented a nearly 15 percent loss in value for the seller. That drop fits a broader pattern the outlet has tracked locally: a slew of office towers in Fort Lauderdale have sold at a discount in recent months.
Commercial Observer pointed to Moishe Mana's purchase of Fort Lauderdale's 30-story 110 Tower for $89 million in September, about 21 percent below the $112.9 million the tower last sold for. Not every recent deal has gone that direction, though — the same report noted that German asset manager DWS sold two office buildings last year for more than $400 million, roughly what it had originally paid for them.
Renovation Plans Target Lobby, Elevators and Amenities
Grover Corlew plans to spend $20 million over the next two years updating 200 East Broward, per Connect CRE's reporting on the deal. The improvements are expected to include modernization of the building's elevators and main lobby, along with best-in-class tenant finishes.
The renovation scope also calls for a new amenity deck with a gym and conference facilities, Commercial Observer reported. JLL served as the selling broker on the transaction, with Hermen Rodriguez and Ike Ojala handling the sale and Paul Stasaitis managing debt financing; BridgeInvest provided financing for the acquisition, according to Connect CRE's account of the deal.
Submarket Had Shown Signs of Tightening
The sale lands in a downtown office submarket that had been showing improvement in recent years. Citybiz reported that downtown Fort Lauderdale posted positive net absorption in the first quarter of 2023, marking its seventh consecutive quarter of gains, while the submarket's vacancy rate compressed 80 basis points quarter over quarter to 12.8 percent over that same stretch.
The 200 East Broward purchase adds to Grover Corlew's investments throughout Broward County, which also include the Mayla Cypress project, a 312-unit luxury apartment community the firm is developing in Fort Lauderdale's Uptown Urban Village within the Cypress Creek business corridor. Grover Corlew closed on a $92 million financing package for that 312-unit complex, according to Connect CRE's separate report on the financing, with Bank OZK providing a $72.3 million mortgage and Affinius Capital supplying a $19.7 million mezzanine loan.
That report also details how the Cypress Creek project came together: Grover Corlew purchased the 3.71-acre site at 6261 N.W. Sixth Way, next to the headquarters of tech firm Citrix, for $5.9 million in 2022, later demolishing the office building that stood there. Completion of Mayla Cypress is expected in 2027, with Straticon serving as general contractor and MSA Architects as designer.
