Citadel, Sterling Bay part ways on planned waterfront Miami tower

Billionaire Ken Griffin’s hedge fund Citadel cut ties with Chicago developer Sterling Bay to build its new headquarters in Miami.

Citadel, which moved to Miami from Chicago, where it still has a large presence, is no longer working with Chicago-based Sterling Bay to build its planned $1 billion tower on Miami’s Biscayne Bay, Crain’s Chicago reported. Instead, Griffin’s firm will handle some of the work in-house and partner with another developer on the Brickell project. 

Sterling Bay was involved in identifying Citadel’s properties in Miami and Palm Beach. It has also worked on permitting and soil testing for the planned new headquarters site at 1201 Brickell Bay Drive in Miami, according to Crain’s. 

Last year, Citadel paid $363 million for the lot, plus another $20 million for the non-waterfront site at 1250 and 1260 Brickell Bay Drive. In the meantime, Citadel, which leases office space at Southeast Financial Center in downtown Miami, also signed a lease for space at the 830 Brickell office tower that is under construction. 

Citadel Securities also relocated.

Griffin told Bloomberg that its planned tower could rise more than 1,000 feet, on par with a number of other skyscrapers in the Miami pipeline. He also said it could be built in five or six years, though it will likely take longer.

Griffin, a Daytona Beach native, has paid more than $1 billion over the last decade for South Florida real estate. 

That includes hundreds of millions of dollars worth of residential properties in Palm Beach, where Citadel will also have an office. Griffin also owns homes on Miami Beach’s Star Island, in Coral Gables and at the northern point of Coconut Grove, just south of the Brickell headquarters site. Griffin acquired the latter property from businesswoman and philanthropist Adrienne Arsht last summer for nearly $107 million. 

— Katherine Kallergis