Billionaire Ken Griffin expands Brickell footprint with apartments, more offices

Miami’s hometown billionaire Ken Griffin is expanding the footprint of his multibillion-dollar Brickell development project.

The founder and CEO of the hedge fund Citadel is planning to build a 300-unit apartment building with a 1,420-space parking garage on a lot Griffin owns near his planned office tower, Bloomberg reported.

Citadel’s office tower at 1201 Brickell Bay Dr. will serve as the company’s global headquarters. The financial firm has also revised its original office tower plans to include more office space, scrapping a hotel that was planned for the building. The revised plans also reduced the building’s height from 54 stories and 1,049 feet to 52 stories and 958 feet.

Citadel and Citadel Securities will occupy about a third of the 1.7 million-square-foot office tower, Citadel Chief Workplace Officer Paul Darrah said at an event hosted by Bisnow in Coral Gables last week.

Griffin has also been quietly buying up units in the nearby Solaris condo building, which he now owns, Bloomberg reported. Though they didn’t know for sure, unit owners had long suspected the Florida-born billionaire, who is worth more than $50 billion, was behind the buyout because of the building’s proximity to Griffin’s other Brickell acquisitions. Griffin’s exact plans for the site aren’t known yet, but his purchase of the condo building means he now owns about five acres in the area.

A Citadel spokesperson told the Miami Herald that work had begun on the office tower site in March. The spokesperson did not respond to an email from the Herald about the recent updates to Citadel’s development plans.

Griffin seems to be making good on a promise that he was “doubling down” on Miami. He made the comment at a conference in Beverly Hills last month during a feud with New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who ran on a platform of taxing the rich.

Earlier this year, Mamdani posted an Instagram video recorded in front of a Midtown Manhattan building where Ken Griffin owns a $238 million penthouse, the most expensive home ever sold in the U.S. The New York mayor was promoting his proposed tax on second homes, which was signed into law last month.

Griffin has criticized the video, and in a companywide email, a Citadel executive called it “shameful” and hinted that Citadel was considering pulling out of a planned $6 billion development project in Manhattan. The veiled threat seems to have been a bluff, as Griffin said in an interview last month that Citadel “probably will go through with the building.”

Griffin, a major Republican donor, moved to Miami in 2022. He was a longtime Chicago resident until he left the city, citing concerns about crime and taxes and bringing Citadel’s global headquarters with him.

Since moving to Miami, Griffin has become one of South Florida’s most visible billionaires, giving millions to Miami-Dade hospitals, schools and charities and often speaking at local events. Just this week, Griffin and real estate billionaire and Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross donated 1,200 World Cup tickets to Florida kids, Bloomberg reported.

Earlier this year, Griffin and Ross, who lives in Palm Beach, announced an initiative to entice more billionaires and business leaders to move to South Florida. Griffin has praised the state’s low taxes and business-friendly policies. He has also suggested that he may be interested in a future in politics and could run for office one day.