Carnival Puts Miami Headquarters Up for Sale as Florida Real Estate Soars

Carnival Corp. has listed for sale its sprawling headquarters on the outskirts of Miami, seeking to cash in on real estate the cruise giant has owned for roughly three decades.

The company is now looking to downsize to about 300,000 square feet (27,871 square meters) of new office space in the Miami area, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named citing private discussions.

Carnival expects to remain at its current headquarters in the city of Doral for the next two years. The building dates back to the 1980s and encompasses 470,000 square feet. A spokesperson confirmed that the firm is “exploring options for new office facilities.”

Carnival hired brokerage Cushman & Wakefield Plc to handle the sale, a spokesperson for the brokerage confirmed, declining to add further details. The last recorded sale of the property dates back to 1983, when it was acquired for $16.6 million.

The decision to sell reflects a broader trend of companies reevaluating their office space needs in the post-pandemic era. While some tenants are looking to upgrade their facilities to entice employees back to the office, others are downsizing to reduce costs.

For Carnival, the sale is a chance to unlock a potential windfall from decades of real estate growth in Doral, where property values have soared alongside the area’s condo boom and the popularity of Donald Trump’s Blue Monster golf course. But it will also mean the company will be navigating a red-hot market to find new office space in the Miami region.

Currently, Carnival’s Doral headquarters is about 15 miles away on gridlocked highways from the port of Miami, where Carnival ships dock.

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., which unlike Carnival is based inside the port, has recently broken ground on a new 10-story headquarters building in the vicinity. MSC Cruises SA, which is building a new cruise terminal at the port, said it will move its US headquarters to a downtown Miami office building near the port as well.

Carnival’s move to upgrade its headquarters underscores how well the cruise industry has done in recent years. Carnival, one of the largest cruise companies in the world, has seen bookings bounce back to a record since the pandemic. The company has 120,000 employees globally and serves about 13 million cruise vacationers per year.

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