Tom Barrack’s Colony Capital relocating from L.A. to Florida

Colony Capital Inc. has relocated its corporate headquarters to Florida.

The company, founded by Tom Barrack, formally relocated to Boca Raton from Los Angeles as of Jan. 1, according to a statement Tuesday. Its digital infrastructure operation has been based in the Florida city for more than 10 years.

Colony is keeping its Los Angeles office to “support its investment and corporate operations,” according to the statement.

The pandemic, which has kept office workers at home for months, is fueling the migration away from high-cost cities as companies look to trim expenses and give employees flexibility on where they can live and work.

Wall Street firms have increasingly been looking south to Florida for office space. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has been weighing plans to create a South Florida hub for its asset management arm, while electronic market maker Virtu Financial Inc. is preparing to move about 30 employees from New York to Palm Beach Gardens.

High-profile companies, most notably Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. and Oracle Corp., have also announced plans to leave California.

The move by Colony to Florida brings the offices of the real estate investment trust to the home turf of its chief executive, Marc Ganzi. The company has shifted focus from hotels and offices to so-called digital real estate, which includes data centers, cell towers and fiber networks.

Colony manages $47 billion in real estate assets, almost half of which is now in digital properties.