Chicago's DeVry Leases 100,000 SF from Opus

MIRAMAR, FL-DeVry Inc. has signed a 15-year lease with Tampa, FL-based Opus South Corp. to build a 100,000-sf campus in this southwest Broward County submarket.The Chicago-based parent of DeVry Institutes of Technologies is paying roughly $24.34 per sf for the class A office space, or a total value of about $36.5 million, based on figures Miami-based Codina Realty Services Inc. recently published in a mid-year market survey.

In a prepared statement, the Fort Lauderdale offices of Opus South expect to begin construction on the project sometime later in the fall of this year, with completion anticipated around early October next year.

Besides the Institutes of Technology, the Chicago company also operates Denver Technical College, Keller Graduate School of Management and Becker Conviser CPA Review.

Although it was not clearly stated in the announcement, Opus South focused attention solely on the career-oriented and technology-based education available through the 21 Institutes of Technology that DeVry operates throughout the United States.

The DeVry project is being built adjacent to a 128,000-sf building that Opus South completed earlier this year. Miami-based Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. leased 90,000-sf of that building as an information technology center under a 15-year lease.