Banyan Street Capital Refinances Doral Center for $53.5M

Banyan Street Capital and Independencia Asset Management have refinanced Doral Center, a 290,000-square-foot, two-building office campus in Doral, with a $53.5 million loan from Wells Fargo, according to Commercial Observer. The joint venture bought the property for $43 million in 2020 and has since put $15.5 million into capital improvements.

Why it matters

This deal is a live data point for developers wondering whether repositioned suburban South Florida office can still clear underwriting. Doral Center is not new construction and not trophy space, it is a 1980s-built campus that got a capital-improvement program and leased up to roughly 85 percent, and a major bank still wrote a mid-nine-figure loan against it. For owners sitting on similar 1980s and 1990s vintage suburban office in Miami and weighing whether to reposition or sell, this is evidence that the debt window is open if occupancy and capex both show up in the numbers. It also confirms Doral, not just downtown or Brickell, is a submarket lenders will still underwrite.

The numbers

The joint venture’s all-in basis, purchase price plus capital improvements, works out to about $58.5 million, or roughly $202 per square foot across the full 290,000-square-foot campus. The new $53.5 million loan pencils to about $184 per square foot, which puts the loan at close to 91 percent of that all-in basis. That is a tight spread between what the owners have invested and what the bank is willing to lend, suggesting Wells Fargo underwrote largely to in-place leasing and cash flow at roughly 85 percent occupancy rather than to a discounted view of the asset.

What’s next

The refinancing gives Banyan Street Capital and Independencia fresh runway to keep leasing the remaining space at Doral Center and hold the asset rather than sell into a still-thin buyer pool for suburban office. Watch for whether the lease-up continues toward full occupancy, and whether other Doral-area owners of older office stock use this loan as the comp to justify their own capital-improvement and refinancing plans.