Fairfield Leaving former Planet Hollywood Digs for GranPark

ORLANDO-Locally based Fairfield Communites Inc., which calls itself the largest timeshare company in the United States, is leaving the four-story, 84,000-sf former Planet Hollywood headquarters building on John Young Parkway in December to move its 600 employees into 95,000 sf at the nearby 187,000-sf Building 500 at Gran Park at SouthPark in south Orlando.

Officials at Fairfield and Flagler Development Co., the building’s property owner, couldn’t be reached at GlobeSt.com’s publication deadline to learn the length and value of the lease. But area brokers intimate with the southwest/tourist corridor tell GlobeSt.com on condition of anonymity the lease is for at least 10 years at an aggregate value of $19 million or $20 per sf.

That would dovetail with a recently reported lease by GlobeSt.com on Schwartz Electro-Optics Inc. taking 76,221 sf at the same Building 500 for an estimated 10 years and an aggregate value of $15 million. Grubb & Ellis Co. puts the average asking class A office rent in the three million-sf southwest submarket at $21.85 per sf.

Building 500 is 55% leased. The 835,000-sf Gran Park at SouthPark venture is 80% leased. Flagler Development has signed leases totaling 225,000 sf in the past two months. Flagler is the real estate division of St. Augustine, FL-based Florida East Coast Industries.

Planet Hollywood International Inc. sold its 84,000-sf building and 13.9 acre-layout in 1999 to Chicago-based RREEF Funds for an estimated $23 million, based on published accounts.

Damien Madsen of Advantis Real Estate Services Co., Orlando, represented Flagler in the GranPark leasing transaction.