Hill City Capital Bids $88M for Spirit Airlines' Dania Beach HQ

Hill City Capital, a Boston-based investment firm, has emerged as the stalking-horse bidder at $88 million for Spirit Airlines’ former corporate headquarters campus at 1731 Radiant Drive in Dania Beach, according to Bisnow South Florida, setting a floor price for an August 11 bankruptcy auction rather than closing a sale.

Why it matters

A single-tenant corporate campus in Broward County is about to clear a 363 auction at a steep discount to what it was carried at on paper, and the buyer stepping in first is a hedge fund, not an airline or a corporate user. For South Florida developers and investors, that is a fresh, court-tested read on what a large purpose-built office complex near Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport is actually worth right now, and on what a buyer without an obvious use for 1,000-plus airline seats and worker housing plans to do with the site. The $88 million floor, and whatever tops it on August 11, becomes the new basis comp for that kind of asset in Broward.

The numbers

Hill City Capital’s $88 million cash bid covers the 8.3-acre, four-building complex: a 180,000-square-foot, six-story office building with space for more than 1,000 employees, an amenity building, an in-flight and flight-operations training facility, and housing for up to 400 visiting workers. Spirit’s own bankruptcy schedules valued the land at $33 million and the four buildings at $288 million, a book figure, not a market appraisal, that the $88 million bid undercuts by more than two-thirds. If outbid, Hill City is entitled to a break-up fee of 3% of the winning price plus up to $500,000 in expense reimbursement.

What’s next

The auction, twice delayed from its original July 22 date, is now set for August 11 in Spirit Aviation Holdings’ Chapter 11 case. Spirit would keep a small office in the building through the end of October to finish winding down operations regardless of who wins. Anyone in South Florida tracking large office-to-alternative-use conversions near the airport has three weeks to decide whether the campus, at this basis, is worth a competing bid.