A Groundbreaking the Design Firm Dates to 8 April
Work is under way at 1401 Brickell Avenue. Handel Architects published its project notice on 16 April 2026. The firm dates the groundbreaking to 8 April and sets the headline at 50 stories in Miami's Financial District.
That notice is the status record for this item. Handel designed the building, and the firm states the start in its own words.
Fifty Stories in the Financial District
The tower is a 50-story mixed-use building. Handel names Banco Santander as the tenant the design serves. Managing Partner Gary Handel and Associate Principal Stephen Sheng attended the ceremony with city officials and bank representatives.
Rilea Group acts as development advisor and project manager. Coastal Construction Company builds it. The collaborator list names Bernardi & Peschard Arquitectura, Transsolar KlimaEngineering, Cosentini Associates, DeSimone Consulting Engineering, RIOS and LandDesign.
Where the Notice Stops and the Bank Starts
Handel's page carries no square footage, no delivery date, no street address and no cost. Those figures sit in the tenant's own material.
Santander's April 2026 release puts the project at approximately 1.6 million square feet, with office space alongside retail, dining and wellness. It lists seven levels of amenities and a sky terrace restaurant with panoramic views of Brickell Avenue. It sets a target delivery of 2029. The bank's 13 February 2026 update gives the street address and a height of approximately 765 feet.
The Tenant That Commissioned the Building
Santander builds this tower as its U.S. regional office. Employees will occupy part of the office space and third-party tenants take the rest. Santander Private Banking, the bank's U.S. wealth business, moves inside.
Executive Chair Ana Botín ties the address to a Miami record that starts in 1979 with the bank's first private banking office. She names the Santander Work Café and the Openbank location as recent Miami openings, and the pending Webster Bank acquisition as part of the same push. Christiana Riley, chief executive and president of Santander US, calls Miami a gateway to the Americas and ties the building to client service across the region.
Seven Hundred and Fifty Jobs in a State Agreement
Santander Holdings USA and affiliates signed a High-Impact Sector Performance Grant Agreement with the Florida Department of Commerce, effective 29 August 2025. The state provides $6,000,000 against 750 new Florida jobs and $630 million of capital investment in the tower. Two payments of $3,000,000 fall due on 31 December 2027 and 31 December 2031.
The agreement sets a hiring commitment and two payment dates. It publishes no desk count and no share of those jobs tied to this address.
The Site the Bank Held Since 2008
Santander bought the 14-story building at 1401 Brickell Avenue for $114 million in 2008. The bank explored a site sale to developers in 2017. It then announced a teardown and proposed a 40-story tower with 613,000 square feet of office and 108,000 square feet of retail.
The bank secured approval and demolished the structure in 2025. By that point the plan had grown to 50 stories with 165,000 square feet of retail and 560,000 square feet of marketable office, plus the bank's own headquarters space and a multilevel parking deck.
The Programme the Leasing Agent Publishes
Blanca Commercial Real Estate holds the leasing assignment and lists 1,042,886 square feet of building. It offers 556,085 square feet of office and 165,610 square feet of retail and amenity. Floor plates run 26,000 square feet including terraces, with 15 feet floor to floor and 13 feet 6 inches clear. The building carries 19 office passenger elevators, separate retail and office banks, valet parking and two spaces per 1,000 rentable square feet. Sustainability targets are LEED Platinum, WELL Gold, and LEED Zero for carbon and water. The Urban Club spans two floors with fitness space, social space and an outdoor terrace.
The listing total and the bank's 1.6 million square feet run on different bases. Santander counts office, retail and parking across the project. No document in this set reconciles the two numbers.
Delivery Dates Three Ways
Santander's release says 2029. The Blanca listing says First Half 2029. The Bisnow report carried on Blanca's news page says summer 2029. All three land inside one year, and none of them is a construction schedule.
No document read for this item publishes a topped-out date, a curtain-wall completion or a fit-out window.
What Property Watch Carries Forward
Four items go on the list. The first is a construction schedule with a dated milestone. The second is leasing absorption, because 556,085 square feet of office and 165,610 square feet of retail sit available in the record. The third is a signed outside tenant, since the bank and Blanca declined to state how much space the bank will take for itself. The fourth is the incentive clock, which pays on two fixed dates.
The market the tower enters reads tight on Colliers data reported in that Bisnow piece. Brickell Class-A direct vacancy stands at 11.8 percent, with asking rents at $93.03 per square foot. Triple-net asking rents here start below $200 per square foot, and prime space is expected above $300. This is the first office tower to rise in Miami's urban core since the pandemic began.