PGIM Sold The Ponce in Coral Gables for $97.8 Million, and the Buyers Borrowed More Than They Paid

An institutional seller exited a 365,000-square-foot Gables office complex that is about 65% leased. The new owners took a $105 million loan to fund $30 million of upgrades.

Per Bisnow's South Florida Deal Sheet, PGIM sold The Ponce, a 365,000-square-foot office complex at 2525 and 2555 Ponce de Leon Blvd in Coral Gables, for $97.8 million. The buyer is a joint venture of Intalex Capital, Itero Investments, Greenwall Capital Management and CDS, the Carl DeSantis family office.

The property consists of a 12-story and a six-story office building plus a parking garage, and it is about 65% leased. That occupancy is the whole story. An institution sold a partially vacant asset to local operators who intend to fix it.

The loan is larger than the price

Acore Capital provided a $105 million mortgage against a $97.8 million purchase. That is not a lender getting aggressive on value. It is a construction-style facility where the extra proceeds fund the $30 million of upgrades the buyers plan to put into the building. Lenders underwrite that structure when they believe the repositioning will lease the vacancy.

One number to be careful with

• Use $97.8 million. That figure comes from the July 6, 2026 deal sheet.
• An older headline says $90 million. It circulates in search results, appears to describe a separate and earlier Coral Gables office transaction, and I did not rely on it.
• No price per square foot here. The reporting did not state one, and I am not going to publish arithmetic dressed up as a market metric.
• Broker identities were not disclosed. Neither was the closing date or PGIM's original basis.

My read

This trade tells you what Coral Gables office is actually clearing at, which is more useful than any rent survey. An institutional owner decided it did not want to underwrite the lease-up risk on 35% vacancy, and a group of local operators with a family office behind them did. That is the defining pattern in South Florida commercial right now: patient local capital buying partially leased assets from institutions that need clean, stabilized numbers for their funds. For a client comparing Gables office to Brickell, the contrast is stark. Brickell is reportedly running 10.8% vacancy with a recent lease at $250 per square foot. The Gables just traded a 65%-leased complex. Same county, different conversation. If you own or lease Gables office, the $30 million capital plan next door will reset what tenants expect from your space, and I would build that into any renewal you are negotiating for 2027.