Carnival Cruise Line is looking to sell its headquarters near in Doral, Florida, after fellow cruise operators have relocated to modern office spaces.
Carnival tapped Cushman & Wakefield to market the 42-year-old property, a brokerage spokesperson said. Carnival acquired it in 1994 for $23 million, Miami-Dade County property records show, and a 2023 property county appraisal assessed the 17-acre property's market value at $66.1 million.
The company will stay at the approximately 470,000-square-foot property for the two years after it sells the site, using the time to look for a smaller, 300,000-square-foot space, Bloomberg reported. The cruise ship company has reportedly been present at the site since the 1980s. Representatives for the cruise line and parent company Carnival did not respond to emailed requests to comment.
Carnival is one of the world's largest cruise line companies with more than 120,000 employees and 13 million annual passengers. Companies across the United States have reduced their office footprints as remote work and flexible work policies remain even as employers increasingly mandate office returns.
The move would better position Carnival in its battle for employees with MSC Cruises and Royal Caribbean, rivals who are similarly engaged in headquarters upgrades, according to a CoStar analyst.
"This goes hand in hand with a rise in demand for the live-work-place environment which has continued to gain traction after the [COVID-19] pandemic, with companies locating to these environments in order to compete for talent," said Juan Arias, CoStar's director of market analytics for South Florida.
Smooth Sailing Ahead
The cruise industry has seen higher demand as pent-up travel plans created at the peak of the pandemic carries the industry forward. Cruise travel reached 107% of 2019 levels in 2023, and passenger volume is expected to grow to nearly 40 million by 2027, according to the latest report from the Cruise Lines International Association, a Washington, D.C.-based trade association and advocacy group. PortMiami — the busiest passenger port in the world as of 2023 — saw 7.29 million passengers during the 2023 fiscal year.
Carnival is not alone in looking for better space. Arias described its likely move as “unsurprising” after competitors have done the same.
“Major cruise industry tenants occupy over 700,000 [square feet] of office space in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, so they are a significant presence in the market,” Arias said in an email. "The overall maritime transportation and leisure and hospitality industry has a significant impact on South Florida’s real estate market," with downtown Miami "now the main beneficiary these relocations," he added.
Both MSC Group and Royal Caribbean are either relocating or expanding their headquarters in the area. MSC Group, a global shipping company and parent company of MSC Cruises, is moving three divisions into a single, 130,000-square-foot space at the Sawyer’s Walk, a Swerdlow Group-developed, mixed-use campus due in Miami’s gentrifying Overtown by 2025. The company is leaving a 13,000-square-foot suburban office at 6750 N. Andrews Ave outside of Fort Lauderdale.
Meanwhile, Royal Caribbean is building a 10-story headquarters next door to its current location at PortMiami, between 1050 Caribbean Way and 1080 Caribbean Way.
A developer could purchase some of those older, suburban offices — such as MSC Cruises and Carnival's — for potential conversion into industrial or multifamily space. "This will likely be the fate of many older, suburban office buildings across South Florida," Arias said.