MIAMI-The American Welding Society, a Miami-based non-profit, purchased the 122,482-square-foot Royal Palm Offices at Doral, for $19 million, $3 million more than the last buyer paid in 2006.

It was an unusual transactions—an all cash sale for a building which was only 15% occupied. Former owner Carlos C. Lopez-Cantera, a Coral Gables real estate investor, bought the building, which is across the street from the Doral Golf Resort and Spa, for $16 Million in 2006, then cleared it of almost all its tenants in order to do a complete renovation of the 38-year-old property.

Lopez-Cantera spent $1.5 to $2 million gutting the building, then redoing the electrical and mechanical systems to bring it up to code. When the sale closed, the building was still mostly in shell condition with concrete floors and no buildout for 85% of the building.

Lopez-Cantera’s original plan for after the renovation was to lease out space and do buildouts for individual tenants, but there were no buildouts, because by the time the renovation was complete, says Greg Zeifman, senior associate in the Miami office of Marcus & Millichap and one of the brokers who worked on the deal, rents were down and tenants were hard to come by.

The building wasn’t technically on the market when Zeifman and Benjamin Silver, an associate in the Miami office of Marcus & Millichap, approached Lopez-Cantera with the buyer. The building was a little big as headquarters for the American Welding Association—the organization was only looking for about 60,000 square feet-- but the association liked the building, says Zeifman and because market conditions had changed so drastically since Lopez-Cantera had bought the building, he was open to selling.

At $19 Million, the price was a fair one, says Zeifman. “It isn’t a rule that everyone who sells a building in 2010 has to lose money.”