Cirrus funds a spec Palm Beach Gardens tower and a three-year lease-up clock

A $118.6 million construction loan from Cirrus Real Estate Partners is funding an eight-story speculative office complex in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, with a term that starts the clock at closing. Called The Palm, the project will put about 200,000 square feet of Class A office space, 30,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, and an 838-space garage on five acres at 11200 RCA Center Drive, between Interstate 95 and the Legacy Place mall.

Berkadia’s Charles Foschini, Scott Wadler, and Shannon Wilson brokered the floating-rate, interest-only debt, Commercial Observer first reported, and construction is scheduled to begin this month with completion in 2028. Gatsby Florida, the developer, paid $17.5 million for the parcel in 2022.

With no signed tenants, Gatsby is counting on office demand to extend beyond downtown West Palm Beach into nearby submarkets whose quality of life is drawing financial services firms and family offices, a migration that billionaire developer Stephen Ross has helped accelerate with a development spree in the area. Foschini’s statement frames it as demand that keeps expanding while institutional-quality new supply stays extremely limited.

Gatsby Florida was founded in 2019 by Nader Shalom and Babak Ebrahimzadeh and has been a steady buyer of South Florida offices, paying $125.5 million that year for the 15-story 800 Brickell tower in Miami and $80 million in 2020 for Di Vosta Towers in Palm Beach Gardens. Cirrus already knows the sponsor: in June it provided a $100.4 million loan to refinance Di Vosta, a 220,000-square-foot property.

A three-year maturity that starts at closing, set against a construction schedule running into 2028, likely leaves a year or less between completion and the date the debt comes due—a short runway for a speculative tower with zero pre-leasing. That structure implies Cirrus is underwriting a quick lease-up, or expects to reprice the loan at maturity from a stronger position; the coverage does not mention extension options, which would change the math materially if they exist.

The loan is part of the selective office lending that has begun to emerge from the repricing cycle. Morgan Stanley has declared the four-year repricing finished and the next cycle open, as this publication reported, and office conviction has climbed, with investor preference reaching 11 percent in the second quarter from 4 percent early last year, per the SitusAMC survey. The recovery, though, is bifurcated: trophy and conversion-eligible assets are clearing while the older debt wall still drags, and The Palm sits in the trophy column—brand-new, high-spec, in a wealthy, supply-constrained submarket—and is being financed that way.

Construction begins this month, and the loan matures in 2029 whether or not the building has tenants by then.