Miami’s commercial real estate boom picks up steam as pandemic pushes companies to seek new digs

MIAMI — Move over, Texas. The Lone Star state has grabbed headlines as tech companies like Oracle, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and billionaire Elon Musk are planning to transfer main operations from California for its greener pastures and — decrease taxes. 

But now, Miami is turning into a magnet for companies attempting to escape from excessive taxes and over-crowding.

The Sunshine State’s most well-known metropolis has tried for years to persuade companies it is not only a playground for partying vacationers, however fertile floor for finance and tech corporations, selling a start-up vibe.

Then the coronavirus pandemic hit.

“I’ve been buying real estate in Miami for over 20 years, and it has been a great flight. Since Covid started, it’s a rocket ship,” stated developer Alex Rodriguez — as in “A-Rod,” the previous Major League Baseball famous person who has been investing in commercial and residential properties. 

Rodriguez has not too long ago partnered with Barry Sternlicht of Starwood Capital in growing restaurant and retail area inside Starwood’s new 144,000 sq. foot headquarters beneath building in Miami Beach, the primary Class A workplace area in that group.  

Sternlicht moved Starwood from Greenwich, Connecticut, in 2018. Taxes had rather a lot to do with it, however he additionally blames political management, particularly New York City beneath Mayor Bill de Blasio. 

“People don’t feel safe,” Sternlicht stated of New York. “The affluent are leaving in busloads, and Miami is getting more than their fair share.” He likens Miami to Singapore—a “working, diverse culture” that is enterprise pleasant. “Frankly, there’s going to need to be a reckoning day for some of these states, like Illinois and New York and Connecticut — my home state — where they’re going to have to figure out they just can’t keep increasing taxes. It’s just not going to work. People can live in other places.” 

The California legislature, for instance, is contemplating elevating the state’s high private earnings tax price above the present 13.3% and lift company earnings taxes. A invoice that will have tried to tax rich Californians for up to 10 years after they transfer out of state died within the final session after extreme backlash. 

“It’s not just the taxes, it’s also about the quality of life,” Nitin Motwani stated of Miami’s attraction. He’s a developer who left Wall Street and Goldman Sachs over a decade in the past to return to Florida. “I loved New York. I just was passionate about South Florida, and I felt that, given what I’d seen in New York, South Florida really had great potential.”

For the final seven years Motwani has labored with financial growth officers to persuade companies to observe him south. His hardest promote was his spouse, Anshu, who additionally labored at Goldman earlier than getting her MBA from Harvard.

“You better make it worth it,” she advised him in 2008. A dozen years later, Anshu Motwani says she’d by no means transfer again. “People often think that Miami doesn’t have certain things that New York has. I don’t think that’s the case anymore.” 

Millions have been spent on arts and cultural establishments, with a reported 40 artist studios now simply within the downtown space. 

The migration to Miami gained steam as corporations like Universa Investments moved from Los Angeles and Nucleus Research from Boston. Then got here Starwood, and now Blackstone is opening its tech headquarters there. A rising variety of Silicon Valley traders are taunting California on Twitter as they head east to Miami — names like Jon Oringer who based Shutterstock, Keith Rabois of Founders Fund and Shervin Pishevar who helped launch Hyperloop One. 

“They don’t know what side their bread is buttered on,” Scott Absher stated, referring to California’s political management. Absher is CEO of ShiftPixy, a tech start-up for half time employees that simply moved its headquarters from Irvine, California, to Miami’s Brickell Key. The lease on his new waterfront workplace is about 25 p.c lower than what he paid in California, cash the corporate wants as it tries to attain profitability. 

According to the Miami Downtown Development Authority, the typical value per sq. foot of workplace area is $45.45, in contrast with $64.12 In San Francisco.

“I came to California in the mid-90s, and one of the things that I observed was just this bubbling of activity and excitement and optimism. I don’t see that as much anymore,” Absher stated. He admits to feeling a bit “melancholy” giving up his California driver’s license however believes he is discovered the revolutionary vitality and welcoming ambiance towards enterprise in Miami that he used to really feel within the Golden State. “I think you’ve got to look outside. You got to look ahead.”

 An evaluation by LinkedIn of the place tech employees are shifting this 12 months exhibits that Miami’s technical workforce is up 3% in 2020 (Madison, Wisconsin, had the most important development — 75 p.c— however the whole workforce is far smaller). 

Home gross sales and costs within the Miami space are up double digits from a 12 months in the past, and executives pondering of shifting right here are actually asking concerning the high quality of faculties, not simply concerning the tax breaks. 

“One of the things that’s really interesting that’s happening here is talent’s coming, and that was always the big knock for Miami,” Rodriguez stated. “It has always been challenging to hire here. But now you have talent from all different sectors.”

It helps Nitin Motwani really feel vindicated. Growing up in Fort Lauderdale, watching his mother and father battle within the lodge enterprise, he vowed to depart Florida and by no means come again. Now, he is a managing accomplice in a $four billion blended use growth downtown referred to as the Miami Worldcenter, which appears counterintuitive to a future the place workplace area is probably not fairly as obligatory. Except … perhaps … in Miami. 

 “During the pandemic, we’ve actually had over a $100 million in transactions at Miami Worldcenter,” Motwani stated. “There’s a phrase ‘Death by a thousand cuts,’ and this has been ‘Success by a thousand cuts.’ This has been the longest overnight success story that you can imagine.”