The owner of the Forum office complex in West Palm Beach has listed the 280,000-square-foot property for sale.
The owner is an affiliate of Miami-based Panther Capital Management, which bought the Forum for $13.7 million in 2010.
The Forum is a cluster of three 10-story office buildings, located at 1655, 1665 and 1675 Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard.
The Forum buildings, constructed in the 1970s, command rental rates under $20 per square foot.
Since Panther acquired the Forum, its occupancy rate has risen to 61 percent from 50 percent.
“They’re trying sell it now because prices are so high,” Neil Merin, chairman of NAI/Merin Hunter Codman in West Palm Beach, told the Palm Beach Post.
The Forum has a “fabulous location across from the mall,” Merin said, referring to the Palm Beach Outlets shopping center.
The Forum is located on a stretch of Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard that has been reinvigorated since the demolition of the old Palm Beach Mall to make way for the Palm Beach Outlets, which opened in 2014.
Jeff Greene, the Palm Beach billionaire, cited the one-year-old Palm Beach Outlets and its tenant mix, including a Whole Foods supermarket, as a catalyst for his 548-unit rental development called Cameron Estates, located just off Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard on Hank Aaron Boulevard. Completion of the third phase of construction is expected in October. Monthly lease rates start at $1,300. [Palm Beach Post] — Mike Seemuth