MIAMI—A landmark class A office tower in Fort Lauderdale's Central Business District has a new owner. Boston-based TA Associates Realty acquired 200 East Broward for $66.4 million.

CBRE represented the seller and reports “tremendous interest” in the project from a number of the nation's leading investment firms. CBRE vice chairman Christian Lee, attributes the high level of interest to Downtown Fort Lauderdale's surging market fundamentals.

“Office market fundamentals for Downtown Fort Lauderdale have been robust, with 387,000 square feet of positive absorption over the last year and a half, reducing vacancy by 560 basis points to 13.3%—a level not seen since 2008,” Lee says. “This strength can be attributed to a national trend, where an increasing number of employers feel that they can more easily recruit and maintain quality employees within CBD locations, justifying higher occupancy costs.”

The office building is 88% leased. The sale price was $294 per square foot. The name of the buyer was not disclosed.

“When combined with the new luxury multi-family development and an overall revitalization of Fort Lauderdale's urban core, we have seen more than 400,000 square feet of tenants migrate from suburban markets to downtown Fort Lauderdale over the last three years,” Lee says. “The even better news for the office market as a whole is that despite the loss of a number of tenants to downtown, Fort Lauderdale's suburbs have experienced strong absorption as well.”

Located at the intersection of Broward Boulevard and Southeast 3rd Avenue, the iconic rose-colored 21-story tower has defined the Fort Lauderdale skyline since its was built 1992. The Energy Star-rated project has retail and bank space on the ground and mezzanine floors and eight stories of parking.

Office space starts on floors nine and higher and offers views in all directions of the Intracoastal Waterway, the Atlantic Ocean, and Fort Lauderdale's cityscape. The property also has an attached nine story parking garage built in 2002.

“With the Las Olas office corridor experiencing 8.3% vacancy and pushing gross rents in excess of $40, and with no new institutional office development on the horizon, the time is ripe to aggressively price the remaining 18.4% vacancy on the Broward Boulevard corridor,” says José Lobón, CBRE vice president. “The buyer plans to implement a cosmetic renovation program in order to capitalize on this imminent increase in market rents—CBRE projects 32% market rent growth in Fort Lauderdale over the next 5 years.”

The Miami-based CBRE team representing the seller included Lee and Lobón, with CBRE's Capital Markets Institutional Group, Charles Foschini, vice chairman, and Chris Apone, first vice president, with CBRE's Debt & Structured Finance Group. Sandra Andersen, senior vice president with JLL, assisted the CBRE team with market leasing.