Broward County commissioners have a narrow window for deciding on whether to bid on the Dania Beach headquarters that was home to defunct Spirit Airlines, as a bankruptcy court auction has been set for late July in New York.
The commission voted in early May to examine the possibilities for acquiring all or part of the expansive campus as a potential replacement for the county government’s current home in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Since then, the county has been collecting information on the property and assessing the potential cost to determine whether an acquisition and conversion of the property are feasible.
On Tuesday, commissioners voted to defer a detailed discussion until a workshop next week. Commissioner Michael Udine, who raised the idea of the county possibly buying the Spirit campus, said he wanted to hear what the county administration has to say at a budget workshop this Thursday “about where the dollars are.”
According to a motion and exhibits he submitted for Tuesday’s commission meeting, the county would not buy the entire campus. It would be interested in an office building, large parking garage, and a training building designed by Spirit as a flight simulator for its pilots. There is also vacant land between the office and simulator buildings where the county could build another structure if it chooses. The county would not spend more than $100 million on the real estate purchase.
The exhibits lay out three rough draft design and construction options, any one of which could serve as the county government’s new home. The estimated cost of each option ranges between $414.5 million and $450.7 million. That compares with an estimated $663.6 million for the proposed buildout of a new government center at 201 W. Broward Blvd. in Fort Lauderdale.
Both the taxpayer and county likely would be better off with the Dania Beach site, said Jaime Sturgis, founder and CEO of the commercial real estate firm Native Realty, which has no involvement in the property.
“It’s a unique opportunity and it’s far less expensive — and quicker than ground-up construction, which would take years,” he said.
“It’s a phenomenal location for Broward,” Sturgis added. “They are a very strong contender for it. It’s a very logical location for them. I think there is a great opportunity to purchase an existing project right now, especially in the office [real estate] space, which has been a bruised asset class post-COVID.”
Broward County is in possession of a Spirit form letter dated May 30 to potential interested buyers of the campus. In the letter, the airline said the campus can be acquired in its entirety or in pieces.
Spirit Airlines’ former flight training facility is shown when the company headquarters opened in 2024. Broward County is interested in acquiring part of the defunct airline’s campus for a new government center. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel file)
Components for sale
Headquarters office: Six stories, 180,000 square feet, as well as:
A 998-space parking garage and 125 spaces of surface parking.
Amenities building: 13,000-square-foot cafe with full kitchen and coffee bar and fitness center, equipment included.
Undeveloped land between the headquarters and the airline’s training center “sufficient to construct an additional 180,000 square feet” for an office or training building.
A 200-unit residential building: The seven-story structure “potentially” could be converted into a “market-rate multifamily” property. It occupies a 99-year ground lease with approximately 96 years remaining.
Training Center: The 108,085-square-foot building contains eight full-flight simulator bays and classrooms. The simulator equipment is not included in a potential sale. “This property requires use of a portion of the spaces in the parking garage, which may be relevant if a bidder seeks to purchase it separately from the other properties above,” the letter says.
Tight timetable
In the meantime, Spirit’s legal team has laid out a schedule of a little more than a month from now for soliciting interested parties, picking a stalking-horse bidder and setting an auction date in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York, where Spirit filed for Chapter 11 protection from creditors in August of last year. The financially troubled discount airline collapsed and shut down on May 2 after failing to secure a proposed federal government bailout in the form of a $500 million loan.
A hearing on bidding dates and procedures is scheduled for Wednesday before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane in White Plains, N.Y. The airline’s takeoff and landing slots at New York’s LaGuardia Airport are also up for sale under a separate bidding process.
Since the airline’s shutdown, a team of Spirit lawyers, consultants and a small cadre of executives and support employees have been carrying out the complex task of winding down and liquidating the business by canceling leases and selling assets to help pay off creditors. The South Florida headquarters is among the assets being marshaled for sale.
Here are the key dates to be met by qualified bidders:
June 24: Indications of interest [non-binding] are due; proposed stalking-horse bids are due.
July 8: Selection of stalking-horse bidder.
July 20: Final bid deadline.
July 22: Auction. “If necessary bidders may provide bids for the entire campus or for one or more of the above-listed component parts.”