Causeway Square, a new 165,000-square-foot mixed-used project at 123rd Street and Niscayne Boulevard, will include 80,000 square feet of class A office space – the first to open in North Miami in several decades, according to city officials.
The office space sits atop two floors of retail, said Irwin Tauber, Principal of Taubco, a local development firm. “We’ve built several projects within a seven-mile radius of this one,” he said. “We’re very excited because there’s tremendous interests from tenants who want to be here.” He said Taubco bought the land about seven years ago.
Construction is about 85% complete, Mr. Tauber said, and both retail and office spaceshould be ready to occupy in January. Link Construction is general contractor; financing was by Wells Fargo.
“Although about 500,000 square feet of office space is within 20 minutes of Causeway Square,” Mr. Tauber said, “most is too old to be graded Class A. People who want to upgrade into a firs-class building have been inquiring about space here because of all the amenities we have”, he said.
Those include hurricane-impact glass, restaurants, shopping, access to I-95 and the Florida Turnpike via Golden Glades, and three covered parking spaces per 1,000 square-feet leased, with surface parking available, said Jorge Morales, a vice president at Jones Lang LaSalle, who is marketing the office portion. “Perhaps the most unusual amenity, he said, “is a docking slip. This building has a story to tell and a reason for being here. Taubco is delivering 80,000 square-feet of new space in a market that hasn’t seen new construction in 25 years, sot it’s certainly not experiencing over building.”He said he is targeting North Dade tenants who want to upgrade to a Class A building and tenants looking for large blocks of contiguous space.
The building offers 40,000-square-foot floor plans with panoramic bay views. “We’re talking with architects about building out move-in ready, 1,500 to 2,000-square-foot offices on the third floor,” he said.
He quoted a rental rate of $25 per square foot triple net, operating expenses are estimated at $13,31 a foot. Mr. Tauber whose wife, Laura Tauber, is director of retail leasing, said L.A Fitness has leased about a third of the space and a vitamin shop has also signed. “We’re talking with both national and local restaurants, hair and nail salons, and other neighborhood services stores.” He said. “The rent we’re achieving are less tan what we projected because we are working with tenants to make it economically feasible for them to move into the building. But this is not a fire sale; we’re making it fair for both parties.”
He said he’s also negotiating wit banks for an outparcel with three drive-throughs. Jacqueline Gonzalez, North Miami building and zoning director, said the project met with city approval. “We liked the concept of retail, gym and office mix,” she said. “This is probably the first new office project since the 1970s. The vast majority of office space in North Miami is class B, partially due to the age of the buildings.”
Causeway Square was approved in 2006, Mr. Gonzalez said, and needed no variances under the old city codes. A new zoning code adopted in April “would not have been allowed a height of stories, and the setbacks would have been different.”
She said the city hopes the project will help revitalize North Miami, “bringing in some new restaurants and retail. We encourage this kind of growth.”
She said Causeway Square is of two major new developments in North Miami this year. The other s Craig Zinn’s Lexus of North Miami, a million-square foot car dealership at 14100 Biscayne Boulevard.