The real estate investing arm of Prudential Financial just paid a whopping $83 million for the 355 Alhambra office tower in downtown Coral Gables.

An affiliate of Prudential Real Estate Investors, which has an asset portfolio valued at $62.6 billion, purchased the 16-story tower through a deed filed Tuesday, according to Miami-Dade County records. The price breaks down to about $168 per square foot.

The seller is AEW Capital Management, an investment management firm that owned the building on behalf of institutional clients. Records show AEW paid $87.3 million for the building in 2008 — about $4.3 million more than its current price.

The tower, at 355 Alhambra Circle, was first built in 2001 and measures 492,820 square feet. A big portion of that square footage is located in the building’s multi-story parking garage, which affords three parking spaces per 1,000 square feet of rentable space, according to the building’s website. The remaining 224,241 square feet is divided into leasable offices. Tenants include Merrill Lynch, Moore & Co. and Spencer Stuart.

This is the second high-profile office purchase in the downtown Coral Gables area to close in December: two weeks ago, a Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management fund paid $119 million for the Alhambra office complex.

Source: The Real Deal