Kevin Davenport to Lead Swire’s One Brickell City Centre Development – Commercial Observer

Kevin Davenport is no stranger to massive development projects, having worked on the 7 million-square-foot Manhattan West and the neighborhood-size Greenpoint Landing in Brooklyn.

Now the former Brookfield Properties senior vice president has taken that expertise to South Florida as senior vice president of development for Swire Properties. He has been tasked with overseeing the buildout of One Brickell City Centre, an 68-story tower in Miami that will soon begin construction.

One Brickell City Centre is finally getting underway in earnest after developers won approval to demolish existing structures on the 221,243-square-foot plot of land, Miami Today reported earlier in March.

Related Companies is partnering with Swire to build the 1,040-foot-tall office building, designed by Arquitectonica and Adamson Associates. When complete, it will be the tallest skyscraper on the Miami skyline. Swire purchased the 123,560-square-foot parcel for $64 million in 2013, Commercial Observer previously reported.

“Manhattan West was one of the biggest private developments in the country at the time, extremely complicated, world-class architects, and we secured world-class tenants,” Davenport told CO. “That was a great experience, I think it’ll serve me well.”

Davenport relocated to Miami at the end of 2022 to take on the role, finding the culture and pace of South Florida to his liking, as many New Yorkers have. He’ll continue working with New Yorkers, considering that Related is a relative newcomer to South Florida real estate.

“I think we have a really unique and optimal partnership because Swire has been an active developer in Miami for 40 years, building projects like the Brickell Key. Very in line with our approach of placemaking, very high quality, very high execution value,” Davenport said. “But they’re new to the Miami market. So our approach is really to collaborate on the project going forward as joint developers.”

Senior vice president of development is the same job title Davenport held at Brookfield, where he spent the last decade. Prior to that, he was with Blackstone and Hines.

Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com.