MIAMI- Wells Fargo & Co. signed a 20-year lease at the brand new, Met2 Financial Center, a 750,000-square-foot downtown office tower. As of Wednesday, the building became the Wells Fargo Center after the bank signed up for roughly 100,000-square feet at the tower. The move will allow it to consolidate its operations in Miami, leaving a hole at the Wachovia Financial Center, its neighbor across the street, as well as the Mellon Financial Center on Brickell Avenue to the south.

The Wells Fargo Center, which just opened with a temporary certificate of occupancy, is the largest contiguous supply of space to be delivered in the Miami office market in 26 years, when the Wachovia Financial Center was completed. Since the beginning of this year, over 1.3 million square feet of new, Class A space has been introduced to the downtown and Brickell Avenue markets. In addition to the Wells Fargo Center, the nearly 600,000-square-foot 1450 Brickell building opened, and a third office building at 600 Brickell, the Brickell Financial Centre, which will have almost 611,000 square feet, is slated to be completed in a little over a year.

With the announcement of the Wells Fargo lease, the former Met2 Financial Center will be a little over 36% leased, says Jack Lowell, vice president at Flagler Real Estate Services, LLC, the leasing agent for the building. Deloitte moved into the tower last weekend, taking two floors, or about 50,000 square feet, he says. The financial services firm has a 12-year lease.

International law firm Greenberg Traurig is expected to move into the Wells Fargo building around October of this year taking five floors, or 128,000 square feet. Two years ago, when the lease was announced, the space was slated to be 150,000 square feet. Meanwhile, there are six other tenant proposals outstanding, says Lowell.  Met Miami, which, when complete, will be a five-building complex, is being developed by the Miami-based MDM Development Group and New York-based MetLife.

The battle for office tenants in downtown and Brickell Avenue is fierce. With two new large buildings just finished, and the office vacancy rate for the area roughly 20%, as of May, the signing of each new tenant is a triumph.  And there is little, if any, sign of new tenants in the market. Those signed up by the Wells Fargo Center, have been purloined from neighboring buildings. Deloitte was also lured away from the Wachovia Financial Center, while the law firm Bilzin Sumberg, another Wachovia tenant, is moving later this year to 1450 Brickell, which, as of a few weeks ago, was 34% leased.

Adjacent to the Wells Fargo Center, a 357-room J.W. Marriott Marquis Miami and a Hotel Beaux Arts Miami are scheduled for completion in October of this year. The fate of Met3, says Lowell, is yet to be determined. A second condominium tower (a 447-unit luxury condominium is already opened) had been planned, but was scrapped, once the market turned sour, he says.