Elected Miami Beach officials, anxious to recruit corporate residents to its eight-mile-long oceanfront community, had offered a $720,000 incentive package to the 33-year-old developer/investor to relocate its headquarters from the West Miami-Dade submarket.

At the last minute, however, the city's finance committee revised its newly packaged bonus plan to exclude companies that had already leased space in the area.

LNR jointly developed its eight-story, 111,000-sf building with Joe Comras of the Comras Co. and developer Scott Robins on city-owned land in exchange for operating public garages to ease the city's shortage of parking spaces.

Although LNR had previously signed a lease for 12 years at annual rent of $1.7 million, the developer hadn't firmly stated it would use the space itself. LNR has the option of subleasing the space, brokers familiar with the Beach submarket tell GlobeSt.com.

But other brokers monitoring the city's incentive program and LNR's growth concepts tell GlobeSt.com on condition of anonymity LNR still plans to move its 240-person staff to the Beach by year end. LNR and city officials couldn't be reached at GlobeSt.com's publication deadline.

Miami Beach officials are completing an incentive plan that would pay relocating corporations up to $3,000 per job.

The plan comes as the city's total class A office space of 290,600 sf stands at 73.78% occupancy and the 918,598 sf of class A product is at 79.18% occupancy, according to the latest numbers from Coral Gables, FL-based RealData Information Systems Inc.

Gross absorption over the past 12 months was 109,578 sf. Moveouts totaled 120,011 sf which translates to a negative net absorption of 10,433 sf. The average quoted class A rent is $30.90 per sf; class B, $25.72 per sf.

Of the 232,000 sf of new construction, 72,790 sf is preleased, leaving 159,210 sf of new product available.

LNR was spun off from Miami-based Lennar Corp. on Oct. 31, 1997 as a stand-alone public company whose shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock was trading May 22 at $35.98, down two cents from the close on May 21. Volume was 27,300. The 52-week high-low was $38.44 and $25.90 per share.