Wachovia Financial Center gets renamed

Miami’s Wachovia Financial Center, which at 55 stories is the tallest office tower in Florida, has a new name. That’s because anchor tenant Wells Fargo, which acquired Wachovia in late 2008, is in the process of phasing out the Wachovia brand name and also recently became the anchor tenant at the new Met 2 Financial Center, which was renamed the Wells Fargo Center. Believing it would be confusing to have two Wells Fargo towers in Miami, the company and its landlord for the 200 South Biscayne Boulevard property have decided to go with “Southeast Financial Center.” That’s the same name that the tower had when it first opened in 1984, because the anchor tenant at the time was Southeast Bank, which failed in 1991 and was acquired by First Union. First Union later merged with Wachovia. Now, the “Southeast” name is intended to refer instead to the bank’s geography, instead. [SFBJ]