A bankrupt airline's headquarters cleared at auction for roughly half of what Broward office was fetching two years ago. That is the number worth sitting with this week.
Spirit's Dania Beach campus: $93.25M for 600,000-plus SF. A Hill City Capital affiliate won the auction for the four-building, 11-acre campus Spirit finished barely two years before it stopped flying on May 2. Corporate offices, an amenity building, a crew-training facility with flight simulators, corporate housing. That works out near $155 per square foot.
Broward office that traded in 2024 — 58 clean county-recorded sales, the last year the file is thick enough to read — ran roughly $192 to $402 per foot, median about $273. The campus cleared below the bottom of that band.
Before anyone drops this into a Broward office comp set: don't. A bankruptcy estate auctioning a purpose-built single-tenant campus is a forced sale of a building almost nobody can use as-is. It says something real about big-block, special-purpose office in Broward. It says nothing about a 6,000 SF suite in Plantation. Dania Beach sale history if you want the surrounding context.
$53.5 million refinanced at Doral Center. Banyan Street Capital and Independencia Asset Management put new debt on the office space instead of selling it. Owners who refinance are choosing to hold, and a refinanced owner has a debt-service number to hit every month. That number sits behind your renewal quote whether the landlord names it or not.
Use it. A landlord carrying fresh debt would rather sign you at a rate they can point to than carry vacancy through a lease-up. That is precisely where a longer term with modest fixed escalations, real TI dollars and a blend-and-extend on the existing space becomes a trade they will actually take. How to run that renewal conversation.
$125 million construction loan in the Design District. Miami Design District Associates and Raycliff Capital broke ground on an office and retail project. New supply in a submarket that has almost none is the rare event that gives a tenant a credible alternative to name out loud. Not for two or three years. But pre-leasing is where the good deal lives, before the building stabilizes and pricing power flips back to ownership. Miami sale comps for the surrounding basis.
Mana Common paid $20.3 million for the old post office. 100 NE First Avenue, a 35,000 SF building plus a 15,000 SF vacant lot. Moishe Mana's group keeps assembling downtown Miami the way it assembled Wynwood, block by block. If you lease near First Avenue, the question that matters is no longer what the market does. It is what one owner decides to do with a contiguous block, and when.
More operators are buying instead of leasing. Restaurant and service-business owners across South Florida have been moving toward ownership, and after several years of steep renewal cycles that is a rational trade — flexibility given up for cost certainty. It does not pencil for every concept, and a sale-leaseback is often the better structure than an outright purchase. The sale-leaseback math is here. If you own the building already, a broker opinion of value is the honest starting point.
The through-line
The buildings trading right now are the ones somebody can repurpose or refinance. Generic, single-purpose, big-block office is being repriced, and Broward is where it is showing up first. If your business occupies exactly the kind of space capital has lost interest in, that is not bad news for you. It is the definition of leverage.
Where I'd be honest about the limit
I quoted 2024 for Broward on purpose. The county's recorded sales for 2025 and 2026 in Broward are down to a handful — four industrial, four office — which is a data-collection gap, not a market event. Any median built on four sales is noise, and I would rather show you an older number with 58 sales behind it than a current one with four. Miami-Dade's file is intact, and its office median has held near $475 per foot across 2024, 2025 and 2026.
If Broward's recording catches up and those numbers land soft, leverage swings back to tenants faster than the asking-rent headlines will admit. If it catches up and they land firm, I will say so here.
Either way the recorded file lags the street by weeks to a quarter, and no county record shows condition, remaining term or tenant credit — the three things that actually move a value. Talk to a tenant-rep advisor before your landlord frames the conversation for you. More commentary in the blog archive, and what property actually sold for across 67 South Florida markets.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Spirit headquarters auction price a valid Broward office comp?
No. A bankruptcy estate auctioning a purpose-built single-tenant campus with flight simulators and corporate housing is a forced sale of a building very few buyers can use as-is. The roughly $155 per square foot it cleared at sits below the bottom of the 2024 Broward office band of about $192 to $402 per square foot, median near $273 across 58 county-recorded sales. It is a real signal about big-block special-purpose office and a poor comp for ordinary multi-tenant suites.
Why does it matter that a landlord refinanced instead of selling?
A refinanced owner has chosen to hold and has a monthly debt-service number to cover. That gives a tenant something concrete to negotiate against: the landlord generally prefers a signed lease at a defensible rate over carrying vacancy through a lease-up. It is the setting where a longer term with modest fixed escalations, a real tenant improvement allowance, or a blend-and-extend on existing space tends to get accepted.
Should a South Florida business owner buy instead of leasing?
It depends on capital, use and how long the business intends to stay put. Ownership trades flexibility for cost certainty, which is attractive after several years of steep renewal cycles, but it ties up capital that may earn more inside the business. For an operator who already owns the real estate, a sale-leaseback often produces the cost certainty and the liquidity at once. The right answer requires running both structures against actual occupancy cost.
How current are the sale figures quoted here?
They come from county-recorded sales, which lag the street by weeks to a quarter, and each figure is published with the number of sales behind it. Broward's file is materially incomplete for 2025 and 2026, so 2024 is used for Broward bands. Miami-Dade's file is intact through 2026. No recorded figure accounts for condition, remaining lease term or tenant credit.