Citadel grabs Miami office space ahead of building its own tower

The leases provide accommodations while Citadel builds its own skyscraper on Brickell Bay Drive with developer Sterling Bay. That process is in its early stages.

The space Citadel will occupy at 200 South Biscayne, known as the Southeast Financial Center, is a sublease from the Knight Foundation, according to a person familiar with the matter. The foundation has moved to a building in the Coconut Grove neighborhood developed by Jorge Perez’s Related Group, where D1 Capital Partners is also a tenant. 

At 830 Brickell, Citadel is taking six floors, the largest lease to date at the project being developed by Jonathan Goldstein’s Cain International and Vlad Doronin’s OKO Group, according to a person familiar with the matter. 

“Citadel’s lease for a new Miami office at 830 Brickell cements our tower and the Brickell Financial District as the destination of choice for finance, technology, and professional-services firms relocating and expanding to Miami,” OKO Group and Cain International said in a statement.

A Citadel spokesperson declined to comment.

Rents at 830 Brickell range from $125 to $150, according to Jones Lang LaSalle Inc., far higher than the average New York asking rent of $82 a square foot. The law firm Sidley Austin LLP recently signed a lease at the project, with amenities including a rooftop bar and restaurant with menus developed by three-Michelin-starred chef, a health and wellness center and an outdoor terrace.

Citadel in late June announced it was moving its headquarters to Miami from Chicago, with Griffin voicing his frustrations over Chicago’s crime rate and the political leadership in Illinois. Griffin and his family have already moved, and he has put four condominiums he owns on Chicago’s Gold Coast up for sale. 

His growing firm is also expanding elsewhere, including in Hong Kong and in New York, where it will occupy about 60% of a skyscraper on Park Avenue that’s nearing completion.

Griffin said last year that Florida, where he was born and raised, had an “opportunity” to become a destination for more talent. During the pandemic, the trading portion of his empire largely left its Chicago and New York offices and took over the Four Seasons Palm Beach. Citadel also is planning an office at 151 Worth Ave. in Palm Beach, at the site of the former Neiman Marcus store.

While finance titans flocked to Palm Beach when Covid hit, many firms now are looking south to the Miami area, where their executives are driving up demand and prices for homes, said Julian Johnston, a Corcoran agent in Miami Beach. Golf club initiation fees also are going up, sales of boat slips are soaring and demand for private schools is exploding, according to Johnston, who has many clients in the finance industry.

Citadel’s commitment to the area, demonstrated by the firm’s plans to build its own office tower, “is the tipping point where it legitimizes that there are some major hedge funds that have moved here and not just partly,” Johnston said. “They like being around each other, so when Citadel’s here—and they’re such a leading firm—I think you’re going to see others.”