Rockpoint Sells 1221 Brickell Office Tower for $286.5M

From left: Rockpoint Group’s co-founders Bill Walton and Keith Gelb in front of 1221 Brickell Avenue (Rockpoint Group, Google Maps, iStock)

Rockpoint sold a Brickell office tower for $286.5 million, marking a record for South Florida office deals since 2016.

Boston-based Rockpoint sold the 28-story building at 1221 Brickell Avenue in Miami to a Delaware-registered entity led by Randall Davis and listing a Palm Beach address, according to records.

The deal follows another mystery entity — also led by Davis, but listing a Chicago address — buying the 2.5-acre vacant lot nearby at 1201 Brickell Bay Drive for $363 million in April. An affiliate of Florida East Coast Realty, led by Tibor Hollo and his family, sold that site.

The 1221 Brickell Class A tower has 408,423 square feet of office and retail space, according to the property’s website. Spanning a full city block and with floor-to-ceiling windows, 1221 Brickell was built in 1986 and renovated in 2020. It has a 2,000-square-foot terrace; 12,000 square feet of amenities; and an attached nine-story garage.

Rockpoint, led by co-founders Keith Gelb and Bill Walton, paid $155 million for the property in 2017.

The 1221 Brickell trade comes as Ken Griffin’s hedge fund and financial services firm Citadel announced it will move its headquarters to Miami from Chicago, and is retaining Sterling Bay to build the new company base. Sterling Bay is based in Chicago. The site for Citadel’s new Miami headquarters has not been disclosed.

Citadel is the latest financial firm to move to Miami, while others are expanding to the Sunshine State but keeping their headquarters elsewhere. Brickell has captured some of this movement south.

Canadian asset management firm CI Financial will open its new U.S. headquarters in OKO Group and Cain International’s planned 830 Brickell tower that is under construction.

In nearby downtown Miami, fintech FundKite will move its headquarters from New York to Aby Rosen’s 100 Biscayne office tower.

Brickell is poised to see additional office construction, as Swire Properties and Stephen Ross’ Related Companies are partnering to develop the One Brickell City Centre tower at 700 Brickell Avenue and 799 Brickell Plaza. At 1,000 feet, the building would be one of the tallest in the Sunshine State.

The 1221 Brickell office deal is the biggest in South Florida since 2016 when Spanish billionaire Amancio Ortega paid $516.6 million for the Southeast Financial Center in downtown Miami.

It surpasses this year’s previous top purchase of $261.5 million for the majority of the Boca Center complex, which includes offices, retail and restaurants in Boca Raton.