Publix pays $83.25 million to buy out its landlord at Miami's Airpark Plaza

Publix Super Markets has paid $83.25 million to buy out its landlord at Airpark Plaza, taking ownership of the 204,000-square-foot center it anchors just south of Miami International Airport, in a sale reported by South Florida Business Journal and relayed by Connect CRE. The price works out to about $408 a square foot, with First Washington Realty the seller.

The only other price the coverage gives is $36.82 million, what Airpark Plaza last traded for in 2008, a figure the new sale eclipses by roughly 2.3 times after 18 years. Neither number says anything about the capital an owner put into a center whose construction began in 1971 on 12.6 acres, and that caveat cuts both ways. The Connect CRE headline rounds the sum to $83.5 million; the story body gives $83.25 million.

The purchase gives Publix control of Airpark Plaza's tenant roster, which includes Burlington, TD Bank, First Watch, Burger King, Domino's Pizza and Wingstop. Connect CRE reports the grocer buys out its landlords to direct physical improvements and the tenant mix, and it names two earlier buyouts this year at Fountains of Boynton and Aberdeen Square near Boynton Beach, making Airpark Plaza the third such move the coverage identifies for 2026.

First Washington's side of the transaction comes ten days after our September 22 report on its $65 million purchase of two Midwest centers totaling 345,493 square feet, which took its portfolio to 21.9 million square feet at a blended basis near $188 a square foot. That basis only works if small-shop rents move; the Miami exit prices at more than double it. Whether the proceeds are earmarked for more Midwest acquisitions is not a question Connect CRE takes up.

No cap rate is given, leaving unstated what Publix paid for the right to re-cut the mix at a center it already occupies. This trade puts the anchor on the buying side of a retail bid that has been about scarcity rather than recovery, with anchored centers and drive-through boxes trading at net-lease-like premiums while unanchored vacancy reprices tenant by tenant. Publix does it often, per Connect CRE. The next buyout prices against this one: $408 a square foot for a center first built in 1971, control of the roster included.