MIAMI-Taking advantage of the lower office rental rates today, BAC Florida Bank has signed an early renewal of its 40,857-square-foot lease at the BAC Colonnade in downtown Coral Gables. The bank signed up for 12 years at the building owned by Deka Immobilien Investment GmbH, a German entity which operates open-ended real estate funds.

Early renewals are not unusual today, says Maggie Kurtz, one of the leasing agents for the building and a director at Cushman & Wakefield. She says that it is the largest lease transaction in Coral Gables so far this year.

According to the lease agreement, BAC Florida Bank will continue to occupy the entire seventh and eighth floors as well as a portion of the ground floor, where it operates a bank branch,  in the 205,000-square-foot Colonnade building. By renewing its lease 23 months early, it was able to re-negotiate the rent for the last two years of its existing lease.

The 11-story Colonnade building is in the heart of Coral Gables, known as the City Beautiful for its elegant Mediterranean Revival architecture and lush landscaping. The Colonnade features a marble-tiled rotunda, designed in a neo-classical style, which is surrounded by marble columns and topped with tropical Corinthian capitals. A fountain sits under the domed ceiling. 

The Colonnade building includes a four-star Westin Hotel and three gourmet restaurants--Morton’s Steakhouse, Le Boudoir and, opening this month, Normans 180. The building has a large parking lot and it is within a block of  two city garages. It is about 10 minutes from Miami International Airport.

It isn’t easy keeping tenants in today’s depressed office market, says Kurtz, not when you have roughly 1.2 million square feet of Class A office space available in downtown Miami and Brickell Avenue as well as space in buildings in Coral Gables which could accommodate BAC’s needs. The  bank could have easily left the Colonnade for one of the other downtown Coral Gables office buildings, she says. There is 59,000-square feet at the 1 Alhambra Plaza building, which could have given BAC signage, says Kurtz, but it chose to stay put.

In order to keep tenants like BAC, Deka Immobilien, which bought the building two years ago, is going through a $2 million remodeling program, which includes the updating of elevators and bathrooms, says Kurtz. As for the rent which BAC is paying, she declined to reveal it. But she does say that the building is quoting  rents of $38 to $40 per square foot, full service, and is 94% leased. It could be 96% leased soon, says Kurtz, since she is working on a letter of intent for another lease.

The new lease at the Colonnade building starts on July 1, says Kurtz. The building owner is giving BAC a tenant-improvement allowance to make whatever changes the company wants, she says, although she would not reveal the dollar amount of  the allowance.