(NewsNationUSA.com) Money management firm DoubleLine Capital plans to open an office in downtown Tampa’s Heights district.
DoubleLine, helmed by bond king and celebrity CEO Jeffrey Gundlach, has leased the entirety of the second floor — just under 23,000 square feet — in Heights Union, according to sources who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the deal.
Heights Union, in the Armature Works-anchored Heights district, is the office building where Pfizer Inc. opened an operations hub earlier this year. The DoubleLine lease comes as Heights Union is on the verge of being sold in a deal that sources say will set a record on a price-per-square-foot basis for office properties in Tampa. Pfizer had temporarily leased the second floor during the construction of its permanent space.
Representatives of SoHo Capital, the developer of The Heights, and DoubleLine did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
“We can’t comment on any project activity,” a spokeswoman for the Tampa Bay Economic Development Council wrote in an email Friday.
DoubleLine manages several types of investment vehicles, including mutual funds, private funds and exchange-traded funds. It had $137 billion in assets under management as of June 30, and an employee head count of 280 — 108 of whom are investment professionals like analysts, traders and portfolio managers.
The Sunshine State is seeing an influx of new residents from regulation-heavy states like California and New York in the wake of Covid-19. Tampa, in particular, is attracting unprecedented attention from executives like Gundlach, who are drawn by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ approach to the pandemic and the state’s low taxes.
It’s not known whether DoubleLine plans to relocate its headquarters or open a new office in Tampa. Gundlach in September 2020 tweeted that he was considering leaving California to escape “incompetent governance.” In December 2020, Fox News reported that Gundlach said he was “researching” a move from California but hadn’t yet committed to a new location.
Gundlach was initially pondering an out-of-state move amid multiple proposals by California lawmakers to increase taxes on the wealthy.
