Hedge fund Citadel to establish a Water Street Tampa office
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Mar 14, 2023

Hedge fund Citadel, which made headlines last year when its headquarters moved to Miami from Chicago, is building an office in Water Street Tampa.

A 3,200-square-foot suite for the hedge fund is under construction on the sixth floor of Thousand and One, an office tower in Water Street Tampa, according to permit documents filed with the city.

Citadel's profits topped $16 billion in 2022, making it the most successful hedge fund in history. It had more than $62 billion in assets under management at the end of 2022.

Representatives from Strategic Property Partners, the developer of Water Street, and Citadel were not immediately available for comment Tuesday. SPP is controlled by Tampa Bay Lightning owner Jeff Vinik and Cascade Investment LLC, the investment fund of Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates.

Citadel becomes the latest big name in finance to cement a presence in the Tampa Bay region, joining celebrity financiers Cathie Wood and Jeffrey Gundlach. Wood moved Ark Invest, her asset management firm, to St. Petersburg in 2021. Gundlach's DoubleLine Capital leased space in Heights Union in 2021.

PEI Global Partners Holdings LLC, a New York investment bank that specializes in power, energy and infrastructure transactions, announced it would open a Tampa office earlier this year.

Global players like Citadel taking premier space in Tampa brings deep credibility, said Ken Jones, founder and managing partner of Tampa-based Third Lake Partners. "Even if it’s not their corporate headquarters or a huge operation, you’ve got major, major global players looking at Tampa as a place to set up shop. And that’s a big deal for our area."

It's not known what sort of operation Citadel will operate from its Water Street office. Citadel CEO Ken Griffin moved the hedge fund's headquarters to Miami from Chicago because of rising crime rates in the Windy City. Beyond the Miami headquarters, Griffin also opened an office in Palm Beach in a former Neiman Marcus building, Bloomberg reports.

"Talent begets talent, and for Tampa, this is the beginning of the beginning," Jones said. "We'll see more and more players of this magnitude coming to Tampa on a fairly regular basis."

In November 2022, in conversation with Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, Griffin said it wasn't Florida's low taxes that brought him to the Sunshine State.

“It’s gonna get me thrown out of here, but taxes weren’t part of our decision to come to Florida,” Griffin said, according to Fortune. “When you’ve got great schools, a great environment and your streets are safe and clean, that’s when you’ve got a place you want to live in and call home.”