Four years, a 22-story condo bought unit by unit, and a $3 million historic cottage. The assemblage clears the way for a $2.5 billion, 1,032-foot tower on Brickell Bay Drive.
Per Bisnow, it took four years and more than $770 million for Ken Griffin to finish assembling a full Brickell city block. The last piece closed when five Miami commissioners agreed to sell Jackson Cottage, described as the city's first doctor's office, in a no-bid sale for $3 million.
The buying started with $360 million in 2022 for the four-acre vacant lot at 1201 Brickell Bay Drive, plus $286.5 million for the office building across the street at 1221 Brickell Ave. Those two purchases alone came to $646.5 million.
Bisnow reports that Griffin purchased all of the condos at the 22-story Solaris building at 1155 Brickell Bay Drive, one by one, concealing his identity until June, per Bisnow's July 28 report, for roughly $125 million. That is a complete private takeout of an occupied condominium tower, executed unit by unit rather than through a bulk termination vote.
If you own in an older bayfront building, this is the template. Holdouts got paid. The buyer stayed anonymous until the assemblage was finished, so nobody negotiating individually knew what the block was ultimately worth.
Two Brickell office data points came out of the same reporting. The 1221 Brickell building is fully leased, with Peter Thiel's family office paying $250 per square foot last month for 18,000 square feet on the 44th floor. And new-to-market activity fell from as much as 21% of office activity in 2021 to 9% in 2026, which says the growth is now coming from tenants already here.
The Solaris deal is the most useful thing here for a normal owner. It proves a full-building takeout is achievable in Brickell right now, and that an individual seller who waits can get paid. It also proves you can be negotiating against a counterparty whose identity and intentions you do not know. If someone approaches you about your unit in an older bayfront building, find out who is behind the LLC before you name a price. What is unresolved: the per-unit prices paid to Solaris owners were not disclosed, there is no delivery date, and I cannot confirm the 1,032-foot height survived the redesign that expanded the office component. The same report notes the county needs more than 90,000 units for residents earning about $75,000 a year.
Assemblage buyers move first on the owners who are easiest to reach and least informed.
See off-market strategy →Cover photography: Creative Commons / public domain — photo credits.
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