Southeast Financial Center
đź“ŤSoutheast Financial Center
photo by Nadia Bouzid
Address: 200 South Biscayne Boulevard
Architect: Edward Charles Bassett, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Associate architect: Spillis Candela & Partners
Developer: Hines Interests, Southeast Bank and Corporate Property Investors
Completed: 1984
Stories: 55
Height: 764 feet
Office space: Approximately 1.2 million square feet
2016 sale: Approximately $500 million
Southeast Financial Center opened in 1984 as the headquarters of Southeast Bank and the tallest building in Florida. The bank occupied approximately half of the complex.
Southeast Financial Center fills the block between Biscayne Boulevard and Southeast Third Avenue, but the office tower does not sit on top of its parking garage. The garage is a separate 15 story building across a palm court. It also contained the original banking hall. Separating the two gave the tower a cleaner base and brought light and open space into the middle of a very large commercial project.
Most of the facade follows a tight, repetitive grid. Then the upper twelve floors begin to step inward. Those setbacks form the top of the building, but they also increase the number of corner offices on its most expensive floors. I like that the detail Miami recognizes from a distance had a very practical job to do.
Edward Charles Bassett led the design for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Florence Knoll Bassett was involved as design director and critic, working with the team on the banking hall, public lobby, executive floors, furniture, materials, and art. The SOM team called her “The Design Committee.” She was clearly not there to choose a few chairs once the architecture was finished.
Southeast Bank failed in 1991, seven years after the building opened. The tower became First Union Financial Center, then Wachovia Financial Center, and returned to its original name in 2011. Amancio Ortega bought it in 2016 for approximately $500 million.
Within a few blocks, One Biscayne Tower, Miami Tower, and Southeast Financial Center give Downtown three very different office buildings from three very different moments. This one is the most direct. It was built to hold a bank, its executives, its art, and more than a million square feet of offices. It makes no effort to disguise any of it.
