Panattoni Development is abandoning plans to redevelop the Miami Herald’s former home in Doral, selling the 9-acre site at a loss for $25.9 million.
A trust affiliated with Los Angeles-based Ares Management, led by Michael Arougheti, bought the property at 3511 Northwest 91st Avenue for $4 million less than the seller paid less than a year ago, records show. Atlanta-based Panattoni, led by Carl Panattoni, paid $29.9 million in August.
Panattoni had begun demolishing a 158,268-square-foot building at the site in April, records show. The firm had also previously filed plans with Miami-Dade County to redevelop the site into two warehouses spanning 153,653 square feet with 171 parking spaces.
Developed in 1997 as the headquarters for the U.S. Southern Command, the office building sat vacant for years after the military moved into a new facility that is also in Doral. In 2013, the Miami Herald and sister publication El Nuevo Herald moved into the building, two years after the sale of the daily newspaper’s longtime waterfront headquarters in Miami to Genting for $236 million.
During the pandemic, staff for both newspapers left the building to work remotely. When Panattoni bought the property, the office building was leased to Learning World Academy.
Earlier this month, Panattoni acquired two other struggling office properties in northwest Miami-Dade County. The firm acquired Building 1100 at 10451 Northwest 117th Avenue, which is half-vacant, in a $21.1 million deed in lieu of foreclosure purchase from Bridge Investment Group.
Panattoni also paid Bridge Investment $20.8 million for Building 1300 at 9675 Northwest 117th Avenue, which is roughly 44 percent vacant. Meanwhile, Ares is beefing up its industrial holdings in South Florida. In October, the firm paid $147 million for a complex of seven warehouses in Miami Lakes. The deal represented the tri-county region’s fourth largest industrial deal of 2024.
