Transwestern has steadily increased the occupancy at Miami Tower since taking charge of leasing  in January 2017 — and most recently closed its top deals.

Financial services companies City National Bank and UBS renewed existing leases at the trophy asset, with City National adding space, for a total value of $75.1 million for the duration of both leases.

Transwestern managing director Glenn Gregory and vice president Christopher Dubberly in Miami represented the owner of the I.M. Pei-designed tower known for its changeable exterior lighting at 100 SE 2nd St.

This deals were “definitely the pinnacle” among the leases Transwestern has done at Miami Tower, Dubberly said.

City National took 105,000 square feet, and UBS has 37,000 square feet.

In the nearly two years Transwestern has been overseeing leasing, the company increased occupancy from 80.8 percent.

“Our leasing efforts were able to bring it up to that 94.2 percent, and that was since taking on the listing,” Dubberly said. “Bringing to the ownership over 110 different prospects or over 1 million square feet of potential lease activity and bringing it to 94 percent was the result of those leasing efforts.”

Transwestern declined to disclose some of the specifics about the latest deals such as the duration of each lease and a breakdown in lease values down between the two financial tenants. It only said the deals closed in September and each lease is for at least 10 years.

Sumitomo Corp. of Americas, a New York-based subsidiary of Japan's Sumitomo Corp., bought the property in 2016 for $220 million in one of the top transactions of the year and owns it through its USPO Miami LLC affiliate.

The 47-story landmark tower is comprised of a 10-story city-owned garage, ground-floor retail and 37 stories of offices. Sumitomo owns the offices and stores. Under this ownership structure, USPO has an air-rights lease and a ground-floor lease with the city, Gregory said.

City National, which earlier this year acquired TotalBank and its office space at Miami Tower, renewed its lease for 48,000 square feet and added 57,000 square feet. Its space includes a ground-floor bank branch, the 13th, 14th, 17th, 18th and 19th floors plus part of the 16th floor.

UBS renewed its lease for 37,000 square feet on the 25th and 27th floors.

Collectively, the two now occupy 23 percent of the 619,089 square feet of office space.

The aggregate value of the lease adds $51.4 million to the building's value, Dubberly said.

It's a calculation done by potential investors or lenders. They take the net operating income, which is the rent stream minus operating expenses divided by the cap rate to get a building value, Dubberly said. That value for these two deals alone is $51.4 million.

The total building value is what a potential buyer or lender would consider, Gregory said.

“That's what a lender would look at from the standpoint of how much of a loan they want to put into the building that would then allow an owner to take … equity out of the building. That's what that valuation really means,” Gregory said. “Based on the cap rate of what buildings are currently selling at within the Central Business District, these leases basically add $51.4 million to the valuation of the building.”

The leases fit reports of a tightening office market in Miami's Central Business District due to a combination of increasing demand and no new supply.

The leases also are a function of growing traffic in the Central Business District and nearby Brickell neighborhood. Miami Tower has multiple exits about a block from Interstate 95, giving tenants a relatively easy out, Dubberly said.

“That congestion is fueling leasing activity that we were fortunately able to capitalize on,” he said.

The lease renewals come about four months after Sumitomo finished renovating the 11th floor Sky Lobby and added a 10,000-square-foot lounge for tenants, the Cloud Lounge. The Sky Lobby and outside Sky Terrace are available for events.

The Cloud Lounge “is utilized by the tenants every day,” he added.

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