Stephen Ross is extending the Palm Beach County jobs corridor south into Boca with 1.7 million square feet of office and technology space. Miami now competes with more than one South Florida employment center.
Related Ross announced on September 10 that it acquired the Boca Raton Innovation Campus, a 124-acre office campus at 5000 T-Rex Avenue, with financing from Ares Real Estate funds, per the Boca Raton Tribune. The campus totals 1.7 million square feet. The purchase price was not disclosed and the loan amount was not specified. Related Ross will continue operating the property as an office and technology campus while advancing a long-term vision for it.
“BRiC changed the course of technology once before for the region, and it will play an important role in what comes next.”— Stephen M. Ross, Chairman and CEO, Related Ross
Jordan Bargas, an executive vice president at Related Ross, pointed at the fundamentals: “Boca Raton has many of the ingredients companies are looking for today, including access to talent, connectivity, a strong university, education ecosystem and a high quality of life.” David Proctor, who heads U.S. real estate debt originations at Ares, said the firm believes the campus “will play a meaningful role in Boca Raton's ongoing evolution as a center of technological excellence.” On the tenant side, D-Wave Quantum plans to move its headquarters from Palo Alto to the Boca campus by year end, per Refresh Miami.
If you see a $1.7 billion price attached to this deal, do not repeat it. One aggregator headlined it that way, and every editorial source covering the transaction says the price was not disclosed. The 1.7 million figure is the campus square footage. I am flagging it because that number will keep circulating, and a bad comp is worse than no comp.
Ross already rebuilt downtown West Palm Beach around tenants who followed money south. Buying 1.7 million square feet in Boca is him extending that corridor, and it changes the competitive map for Miami. For years the relocation pitch was Brickell or nothing. Now a company weighing South Florida has a serious campus option 45 miles north with parking, a university next door and an owner who has done this before. I do not read that as bad news for Miami-Dade. A region with several real employment centers is a more durable region, and it supports housing demand across a much wider band of the map than Brickell alone ever could. The thing I will keep asking about is the price. Until a deed or a loan document surfaces, nobody outside the deal knows what a 124-acre campus traded for, which means there is no usable Boca office comp here yet, only a headline.
Tell me what you are underwriting and I will send you what is actually trading in that submarket.
Talk commercial →Cover photography: Creative Commons / public domain — photo credits.
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