Condo at 104 Reef Lane

The former head of one of Venezuela’s largest media companies just sold a seven-bedroom home in Oceana Key Biscayne for $6.05 million.

Nonna Investments, which lists its manager as Miguel Angel Capriles, sold Villa 4 at 104 Reef Lane in Key Biscayne to a Florida company called 104 Reef Lane for $1,192 per square foot, property records show.

The buyer of the property is unclear, but records show its registered agent is attorney Robert Adams, whose office is located at 1000 Brickell Avenue Suite 300. The two-story home has 5,074 square feet and was originally listed in February for $6.8 million or $1,340 per square foot. It was first purchased in 2014 by Nonna Investments for $5.7 million.

Oceana Key Biscayne is a 142-unit, 12-villa, luxury condo development built by Argentine developer Eduardo Constantini. It was designed by Bernardo Fort-Brescia’s Arquitectonica.

Capriles is the son of the founder of Cadena Capriles, one of Venezuela’s largest media companies, which owns the newspaper Últimas Noticias. In 1998, Capriles became president of the company after the death of his father, but the company was sold in 2013 to an unnamed buyer.

A penthouse owned by a former Venezuelan insurance executive was recently listed at Oceana Key Biscayne for $25 million, and is the highest-priced listing among all Key Biscayne homes. The unit is two stories and encompasses 17,978-square-feet.

Rendering of Miami Freedom Park

David Beckham’s group just released a rendering of its proposed mixed-use soccer complex. The Miami City Commission will vote this week on whether to place the proposal on a November referendum.

Beckham’s partner Jorge Mas calls the project Miami Freedom Park. The entire development includes a 25,000-seat stadium, 110 acres of green space, 400,000 square feet of office space, 23 acres of public soccer fields and 600,000 square feet of entertainment, restaurant and retail space.

The group hired Arquitectonica to design the renderings. The $1 billion project is slated to rise on the city-owned Melreese Country Club, which sits along Northwest 37th Avenue, just north of the Dolphin Expressway.

Two new condo towers at Brickell City Centre

Renderings recently released by Swire Properties give a glimpse as to what the developer intends to build on the former Tobacco Road site.

Swire is partnering with Colombian businessman Carlos Mattos to jointly develop two condo towers at 650 South Miami Avenue as an expansion of its Brickell City Centre.

The renderings, designed by Arquitectonica, show one tower featuring three levels of ground-floor retail. The Mattos-Swire development is on the northeast side of Brickell City Centre and will be connected by skybridges.

YotelPad Miami renderings

YotelPad Miami in downtown Miami just released renderings.

Aria Development is working with the Kuwaiti real estate company AQARAT to build the 31-story tower planned for 227 Northeast Second Street.

Once complete, the $150 million development will feature 208 condos and 250 Yotel “cabins,” or small hotel rooms. Prices start in the $300,000s. Condos range in size from about 417 square feet to 708 square feet.

Downtown Doral’s 5350 Park studio renderings

Codina Partners just released renderings for its studio apartments at Downtown Doral’s 5350 Park.

The 19-story project is the third of eight condo towers Codina Partners is developing as part of its massive Downtown Doral mixed-use project.

The 238-unit development is made up of a mix of studios and one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments with prices starting in the $250,000s. It sits on the corner of Northwest 53nd Street and Northwest 84th Avenue.

San Francisco skyline with Robert Reffkin and Bob Dadurka

Compass is forging ahead with its national expansion by acquiring Paragon, a 225-agent firm in San Francisco that closed $2.3 billion in sales last year.

The deal, announced Monday, will boost Compass’ ranks to 500 agents in the Bay Area, two years after it launched there, making it the top agency in San Francisco by sales volume and market share, Compass said. The purchase will better position the New York-based firm in a market where home prices, fueled by the Silicon Valley tech industry, continue to surge to record highs.

Combined, the companies had $4.5 billion in 2017 sales volume, Compass said. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Paragon, which currently has eight offices, was launched in 2004 by Bob Dadurka, Anita Head, George McNabb and Sally Stull.

Dadkura, who is Paragon’s CEO, said Compass reached out six to eight weeks ago to explore a possible deal. He said Paragon is having its best-ever year, with sales up 20 percent year-over-year during the first six months.

“Our market has always been competitive,” Dadurka said, of the Bay Area’s rising home prices. “It’s becoming more of an international and tech-centric market, so partnering with Compass and responding to the market in the proper way, together we’ll have a very dynamic company through which to do that.”

Last year, Compass set out to capture 20 percent market share in 20 U.S. cities by 2010. Since receiving a $450 million investment from SoftBank in December, the six-year-old company, now valued at $2.2 billion, has grown aggressively by hiring agents — and acquiring firms in new cities.

In the past several months alone, Compass has picked up eight brokerages, including Conlon Real Estate, a 300-agent firm in Chicago. “M&A is just one part of our core strategy,” said Rob Lehman, Compass’ chief growth officer, during a recent interview with The Real Deal. “There’s no question that there have been more acquisitions.”

The deal will give Compass a stronger foothold in San Francisco, where housing prices have been going through the roof.

The average sales price for a house in San Francisco rose $205,000 to $1.62 million during the first half of 2018 — a record increase, according to an analysis by Paragon. The average condo price rose $71,000 to $1.21 million.

The massive spike can be traced to SoftBank’s $100 billion Vision Fund, which has been pouring money into Silicon Valley startups, as well as to recent IPO activity and the steady growth of Facebook, Apple and Alphabet.

Conceptual rendering of 101 Fort Lauderdale (Credit: FECI) 

Florida East Coast Industries is planning to build a Fort Lauderdale Brightline office and retail tower, amid demand for new office development.

FECI aims to build 101 Fort Lauderdale, a 14-story building at 101 Northwest Third Street Street in downtown Fort Lauderdale. It will feature 175,000 square feet of office space across 7 floors and 15,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and amenities. The property will also have 2.5 parking spaces per 1,000 square feet leased, according to a CBRE press release.

FECI is the parent company of Brightline, a high-speed rail service connecting passengers from West Palm Beach to Fort Lauderdale and Miami. The 60,000-square-foot Brightline Fort Lauderdale Station is located at Northwest Second Avenue, between Broward Boulevard and Northwest Fourth Street.

FECI hired CBRE to lease its office space. CBRE’s Christopher Gallagher and Jeffrey Kelly were hired for office pre-leasing at the tower, which has not yet received approval.

The office tower is located in Progresso Village in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Its ground-level retail will include food and beverage, fitness and shared conference facilities, according to the release. In addition to Brightline, the property also connects to Broward County Transit, Sun Trolley and is near Tri-Rail.

Fort Lauderdale’s downtown office market has largely remained strong in recent years with vacancy rates at 12.2 percent in its most recent quarter, according to JLL. But there have been no major office buildings completed in the downtown area since the recession in 2008. Stiles Corp., which built the last major office tower there, is currently developing a 350,000-square foot-office building downtown with plans to open in 2020.

The 15-acre property known as Gemini is currently listed for $139 million by Cristina Condon and Todd Peter of Sotheby’s International Realty.

In Manalapan, there are no ordinary beachfront homes, brokers say. Offering unique ocean-to-Intracoastal lots, many of the houses are sprawling megamansions replete with lush lawns, yacht docks and endless water views.

But despite the singular inventory, owners still have to do what it takes to sell their mansions, and sometimes that means drastically slashing prices. One home now on the market in Manalapan — a 15-acre, 33-bedroom oceanfront estate known as Gemini — was originally listed for $195 million in 2015, reduced to $165 million and is now listed by Sotheby’s International Realty for $139 million, which still makes it one of the most expensive homes in the U.S.

The entire town of Manalapan (about 10 miles south of the town of Palm Beach) is only about 2.5 square miles and has 426 residents. Manalapan took the No. 1 spot on Forbes’ 2016 list of America’s most expensive zip codes, with a median listing price of $7.86 million for homes on the market at the time. In 2017 it fell to second place on the Forbes list with an $8.37 million median sales price, behind Atherton, California.

In Manalapan, price reductions are spurring sales, brokers said. According to recent sale records, the last four home sales on the barrier island have ranged in price from a little over $1 million for a two-bedroom villa on Point Manalapan to a five-bedroom home on South Ocean Boulevard, originally listed for $24.5 million, that sold in March for $18.5 million. As of press time, 32 properties in town were on the market.

Although prices are being reduced, “for what you get, Manalapan is almost undervalued,” said Jennifer Spitznagel, a broker with Brown Harris Stevens in Palm Beach. “It’s rare to find a luxury resort community that has ocean and Intracoastal access. If you drive on A1A, you will see large yachts parked behind many of the homes.”

The ocean access, along with the seclusion many of the Manalapan lots offer, has attracted celebrities and billionaires (see sidebar on page 48). Motivational guru Tony Robbins and New Age musician Yanni own homes in Manalapan, as did boxing promoter Don King and famed criminal defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey. Billy Joel, a brief resident of the area, purchased a 13,000-square-foot house in Manalapan for $11.8 million in 2014 and listed it for $19.5 million in 2015. He lowered the asking price in April to $16.9 million and has included the furnishings in the deal.

As The Real Deal reported in December, in this real estate cycle to that point, spanning the years 2011 to 2017, buyers invested more than $540 million in Palm Beach County’s 10 priciest home sales  alone. One of those sales was 1370 South Ocean Boulevard in Manalapan, which sold for $40 million in March 2017.

The well-heeled buyers in Manalapan don’t just get an estate. There’s another perk to ownership in the area: All town residents receive membership in La Coquille Club at the Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa (formerly the Ritz-Carlton Palm Beach), which sits on 7 acres of private beach and has a fitness facility and a private beachfront dining room for members.

Near the hotel are La Coquille Villas luxury condo co-ops, villas and townhomes. The units for sale are priced between $700,000 for a two-bedroom, two-bath unit to more than $1 million for a three-bedroom.

Reached by a bridge, Point Manalapan — the tip of the barrier island — has smaller homes and villas with Intracoastal views, priced slightly lower than larger homes on Manalapan.

Those with less cash on hand can also, surprisingly, find rental opportunities. Single-family homes for rent in Manalapan range from a Colonial-style four-bedroom house for $7,500 a month to a $65,000-a-month seven-bedroom, eight-bath home with ocean and Intracoastal views and private dockage. Town Manager Linda Stumpf said Manalapan does have restrictions on renting: An owner cannot rent for less than three months or more than three times a year.

Having suffered in Florida’s real estate downturn, Spitznagel said, Manalapan has firmly rebounded. “The price per square foot is rising, and there definitely is room to go up,” she said.

For those who can’t afford Manalapan, the small beachside community has Boynton Beach, Hypoluxo, Lantana and South Palm Beach as neighbors. Patricia Sousa, an agent with Lang Realty, described the local market as competitive for real estate agents and said that rather than focus solely on Manalapan, most agents selling in the town also serve these surrounding waterfront areas.

(Click to enlarge)

In Hypoluxo, the two most recent single-family home sales closed in the $700,000 range. Both were three-bedroom, two-bath homes without water frontage.

For buyers who want new construction, two condo buildings are rising in the area. The first, in South Palm Beach —  3550 South Ocean — is a luxury high-rise on the ocean with 30 units of about 3,000 square feet starting at $2 million; the other is the Bristol Palm Beach in West Palm Beach, a 25-story building with 69 units starting at $5 million for a 3,500-square-foot unit.

The lay of the land

Manalapan’s history dates back to its incorporation as a town in 1931. It’s a true residential community, with only 4 percent of the town’s land area designated as commercial.

Stumpf said there are no areas of Manalapan undeveloped, and the small amount of commercial use has been intentional; the only commercial zoning is for the hotel and one shopping plaza, the 103,000-square-foot Plaza del Mar.

When a Publix opens this fall in Manalapan’s Plaza Del Mar, the event will mark the culmination of years of effort to bring the supermarket to the town, which has only had specialty markets in the center in the past.

Palm Beach Gardens-based Kitson & Partners added the 27,881-square-foot Publix as part of the redevelopment of the Plaza del Mar shopping center and has ensured that the signage will be discreet to reflect the feel of the upscale coastal community.

Real estate agents said the grocery store should prove attractive for homebuyers.

“It will be very beneficial, because residents don’t have to leave the community anymore to do their grocery shopping,” Stumpf said. 

Jon Gray, Barry Sternlicht and single-family homes (Credit: Maxpixel)

Investors are raising billions of dollars from bond buyers, pension funds and even wealthy individuals for the single-family home rental market.

“We’re seeing a wider variety of investors coming into this asset class: sovereign-wealth funds, insurance companies, hedge funds, pensions, asset managers,” Sandeep Bordia, head of research and analytics for Amherst Capital Management LLC, told the Wall Street Journal.

Major investors last year bought more homes than in the previous year for the first time since 2013, when heavyweights like Blackstone Group and Starwood Capital Group pounced in the wake of the financial crisis to buy up foreclosed homes at rock-bottom prices.

Investors last year bought 29,000 homes, up 60 percent from the previous year, according to estimates from Amherst Capital Management, which bought nearly 5,000 homes.

Some investors are now even starting to build their own homes in popular markets like Miami and Nashville, where supply is tight. They believe American families that traditionally bought a starter home and moved up will prefer to rent when that time comes.

“The American dream no longer includes homeownership,” said Jordan Kavana, chief executive of Transcendent Investment Management LLC, a company based in South Florida that has been purchasing rental homes. “You will earn your equity in other ways, not your home.”

The rising value of homes, too, has allowed investors to borrow against the properties to buy even more. American Homes 4 Rent, the country’s largest single-family home rental company, sold $500 million of unsecured debt in January. Invitation Homes last month raised $1.3 billion through the corporate bond market, the largest deal yet for the industry. [WSJ] – Rich Bockmann

3800 West 12th Avenue and Javier Cervera Jr. (Credit: Cervera Real Estate Ventures)

Cervera R.E. Ventures is entering Hialeah’s hot commercial market.

The company just paid $11.3 million for a shopping center at 3800 West 12th Avenue, with plans to reposition and renovate the property, President Javier Cervera Jr. said. It’s the company’s first acquisition in the city.

The seller is an affiliate of Leon Medical Centers. Records show W 12th Ave Investment, led by Michael Shealy, bought the building in 2015 for $11 million. The seller originally intended to convert the property into a medical center, but plans fell through after it expanded one of its existing centers, Cervera said.

The 74,350-square-foot retail property traded hands for about $150 per square foot. It sold about 85 percent leased to a mix of restaurant tenants and some small medical offices. Other tenants include a dance studio, a karate studio, a beauty salon and a day care.

The two-story retail plaza, built in 1984, sits on nearly 3 acres of land along Ludlam Road. The shopping plaza is near the newly completed 226-unit multifamily complex at 3500 West Ninth Avenue, developed in partnership with CFH Group and the Cayon Group.

Cervera’s company owns and manages a number of retail shopping centers, apartment buildings and warehouses throughout South Florida. He’s part of the Cervera family’s second generation, along with his sisters Alicia Cervera Lamadrid and Veronica Cervera Goeseke.

Cervera said the company plans to pick up more property in the area. It’s currently under contract to purchase a portfolio of industrial properties nearby for $2.6 million.

The area is hot with industrial activity, as investors and developers are capitalizing on its proximity to Miami International Airport.

Cervera R.E. Ventures is also under contract to sell a 1.42 acre stretch of land in Miami’s Arts & Entertainment District for $30 million to MRR Development, a new firm led by Rotem Rosen, Jerry Rotonda and billionaire Anand Mahindra.

Mergers and acquisitions aren’t just about growth. For some firms, they are the final lifeline. And without that lifeline, the company goes under.

Such was the case with Town Residential and Eastern Consolidated, which spent a combined 45 years brokering deals in New York. In the span of just two months in 2018, both shops pulled the plug.

This spring, Town CEO Andrew Heiberger shopped the eight-year-old firm to former rivals.

Related: Real estate’s new age of mergers and acquisitions 

Sources said Elliman agreed to pay him a gross percentage of commissions to acquire all of Town’s agents. But the deal collapsed when Elliman Chairman Howard Lorber made it clear he would drop Town’s name and would not agree to assume the firm’s debt.

With no white knight in sight, Heiberger ceased Town’s resale and leasing operations, effectively shutting down and sending around 400 agents scrambling for new jobs. “It was definitely the last option,” Heiberger said at The Real Deal’s new development forum in May. “And really the only option.”

Heiberger has attributed Town’s downfall to a confluence of external factors that made it nearly impossible to turn a profit. But while other firms are seeing their margins tighten in this market, Town’s high expenses — for rent, parties and agent perks — were undoubtedly part of the firm’s undoing, sources say.

In the case of Eastern, the 37-year-old company had dug itself into a hole it couldn’t climb out of.

On TRD’s most recent investment sales ranking — a tally of closed sales of $1 million-plus in 2017 — the firm closed $622 million in deals. That was down 60 percent from the year before, one of the biggest drops on the list.

By comparison, Meridian Capital Group — which launched its investment sales division in mid-2015 after poaching Eastern’s David Schechtman and Lipa Lieberman — beat out the firm by more than $300 million, even while its dollar volume dropped by 40 percent.

Co-founders Daun Paris and Peter Hauspurg considered forming a strategic partnership with another brokerage to breathe new life into the company. But a deal never materialized, and on a Friday in the middle of last month they called a companywide meeting to tell their employees that the firm would shutter in a month. “They said it’s a tough market,” said Eastern broker Daniel Wesson. “And they didn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel.”

The brokerage’s demise, sources say, can be traced to an ill-fated decision to pivot the firm’s platform about five years ago.

Paris and Hauspurg decided to expand outside the company’s bread and butter and hired Chief Sales Officer Mark Schnurman to retool the firm’s sales process: Instead of having veteran brokers prospecting for deals, Eastern went on a hiring spree, bringing on junior salespeople to canvass for deals and pass them up the food chain, with all sharing a cut of the commissions.

Some speculate that the plan may have been to bulk up the company for a potential sale, but the playbook didn’t produce the desired results.

One of Eastern’s biggest shortcomings, sources said, was that it didn’t dominate any one sector. With income dwindling and the increased overhead, Paris and Hauspurg decided in late 2017 that the only way to save the business was to sell it off. They hired an investment bank to evaluate the opportunity.

“During this process, other opportunities arose, but they all came with terms and conditions with which we were not comfortable,” the husband-and-wife duo said in a statement.

The sale of a private company can, indeed, be a messy affair.

“The thing that’s different about a private deal and a public deal is really that the sellers are still around after the transaction closes,” said Richard Morris, a partner at the law firm Herrick Feinstein.

With a sale of a public company, one party buys the other’s shares and the two go their separate ways. But with private firms, both sides often have to agree on everything from noncompete clauses to which managers and employees will stay on. Often there are also performance guarantees or benchmarks that need to be hit for the sellers to get paid.

And obviously, they need to agree on price. Sources said the fact that Eastern was burdened by high overhead gave it a weaker negotiating hand on that front.

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President and CEO of Longview Asset Management James Star

A Chicago investment fund manager tied to the Crown family just paid nearly $6 million for a townhome at Murano at Portofino in Miami Beach.

James A. Star is the CEO and president of Longview Asset Management and is married to Sara Crown Star, a member of the billionaire Crown family of Chicago. He purchased the townhome at the waterfront luxury condo tower at 1000 South Pointe Drive from M4 Portofino, which lists its registered agent as Dorr Asset Management, a Cayman Islands company, property records show.

The 2,786-square-foot, three-bedroom unit, TH M4, was previously purchased by M4 Portofino in 2013 for $4.85 million. Star bought the townhome for $2,149 per square foot. Stacy Robins of Stacy Robins Companies represented the seller. Sildy Cervera and Laura Charles of Cervera Real Estate represented the buyer.

The Crown family is one of the wealthiest families in Chicago with interests in the New York Yankees, the Chicago Bulls, the Rockefeller Center and General Dynamics. The family also has a large philanthropic organization, where Crown Star works as a director.

The Murano at Portofino, a 189-unit luxury waterfront condo in South Beach’s South-of-Fifth neighborhood, was developed by the Related Group in 2002.

In February, pet e-commerce millionaire Alex Zhardanovsky paid $5 million for unit 1401 at Murano at Portofino. Last year, vitamin mogul Andrew Lessman paid $6 million for unit 2201.

The South-of-Fifth neighborhood has seen much redevelopment in recent years. Luxury condominiums like One Ocean, 321 Ocean and Louver House have been built, and several new restaurants have opened, including Forte Dei Marmi at 150 Ocean Drive and Planta at 850 Commerce Street.

Site of proposed apartment complex and Sergio Pino (Credit: Google and Century Homebuilders Group)

Century Homebuilders Group and a Colombia-based real estate fund, Pactia USA, are teaming up to build an apartment complex near the Shops at Merrick Park in Coral Gables.

Property records show the partnership bought two vacant parcels of land on the southeast corner of Bird Road and Southwest 42nd Avenue for $6.3 million. Century Laguna, an affiliate of Century Homebuilders, was the seller. Century Homebuilders assembled the parcels between 2005 and 2006, records show.

With Pactia USA co-investing in the project, the joint venture can move ahead with plans to build a 118-unit rental project featuring 10,000 square feet of commercial space, Pino said.

Century Homebuilders established a working relationship with the fund about two years ago to develop properties in United States. This will be the partnership’s third development, Pino said. Pactia USA is a joint venture between partnering infrastructure firms ConCreto and Grupo Argos.

A number of developers have been building projects around the popular Coral Gables shopping destination.

The proposed development is adjacent to the Astor Companies’ Merrick Manor, a 10-story condo development. Across the street from the Shops of Merrick Park, BF Group  is planning a mixed-use office building at 4311 Ponce de Leon Boulevard.

Jessica Robinson and a woman in a yoga pose (Credit: Public Domain Images)

Zillow fired an advertising representative after she sent an email to an unhappy Premier Agent user telling him to “take up yoga, and breathe a bit.”

Jessica Robinson was terminated on Monday, after sending the email to Tony Traynor of Keller Williams Chicago-O’Hare in the early hours of July 4, Inman reported. After 60 days with Premier Agent, Traynor canceled his contract through another representative, Bobby Cyr. Robinson, who’d worked with Traynor prior to Cyr, responded to the cancelation in an email.

“Wow Tony, after all the faith and time [Bobby Cyr] and I put into you and your success? Noted,” Robinson wrote. “Didn’t want to believe you’d fall, but again, no surprise. You were a risk. Zillow is most definitely not your platform. Disappointed. May I suggest you take up yoga and breath a bit? Happy 4th and good luck ahead without us.”

Robinson, who’d worked with Zillow since November, was fired on Monday. In a statement, Zillow said her email wasn’t consistent with the company’s “culture or values.”

“My email stemmed from frustration and was highly out of line,” Robinson said. “I completely accept all responsibility for my wrong doing and am very remorseful and apologetic for acting from emotion and a place of disappointment. [Tony] is a very good agent and only deserves the best. He is on the right, and I was very much in the wrong. I have learned a big lesson and regret it was at Tony’s expense.” [Inman] — Kathryn Brenzel

129-room Cambria Hotel at 163rd Street and 19th Avenue

The Afin Developer Group won approval from the North Miami Beach Planning and Zoning Board for a 129-room Cambria Hotel at 163rd Street and 19th Avenue.

The new plan is for a smaller hotel than originally approved in 2015. The development will now span seven stories and 170,425 square feet, with 18,227 square feet of retail.

Afin’s original plan had called for a 231,045 square-foot, 11-story development with 165 hotel rooms and 18,036 square feet of retail.

Yet, the hotel market has changed over the last couple of years and a smaller hotel would be more financially feasible, Joseph Geller, the attorney for the developer, said at the board meeting on Monday night.

Meanwhile, hotel construction in South Florida is up, with nearly 4,200 new hotel rooms with 2.8 million square feet of space to be completed within the next two years, according to Lodging Econometrics data analyzed by Colliers International South Florida.

Under Afin’s new proposal, the retail will be anchored by a restaurant. On top of the retail will be two-and-a-half levels of parking. The main lobby will be on the fourth floor. A pool deck will also be on top of the garage.

Building four fewer stories will save money, Afin principal Alejandro Araujo said, because if a building is over 75 feet tall, it is considered a high-rise and the high-rise building code requires it to have certain fire and life safety equipment that are not required for a mid-rise building.

Araujo said it is too early to know the cost of the development, but he said he was looking for savings, because construction costs have gone up since the original plan was put together. As more and more buildings are rising in South Florida, labor, which has become harder to find, has also become more expensive. Plus, the tariffs imposed on Chinese steel recently have caused prices for that commodity to go up about 10 percent.

Ajaujo said he expects to break ground on the hotel either in December of this year or the first quarter of 2019.

The site for the Cambria Hotel, which is part of Choice Hotels, is currently vacant. An office building once stood there. The developer paid $2.3 million for the .86-acre site in 2012, records show.

Block 45 Atlantic Pacific

A proposal to build 360 affordable and workforce housing apartments in Overtown near Miami Worldcenter and Brightline’s MiamiCentral development is gaining traction.

Miami-Dade commissioners on Tuesday unanimously approved negotiating a deal with Atlantic Pacific Communities to develop a $172.8 million mixed-use project with a total of 600 residential units on a 90,000-square-foot parking lot at 152 Northwest Eighth Street. The site is owned by the county.

Atlantic Pacific beat out a competing proposal submitted by a partnership of 13th Floor Investments, Adler Group and Cornerstone Group by offering to set aside 60 percent of the proposed 600 residential units for low-to-middle income renters.

Atlantic Pacific is teaming up with Elite Equity Development, BAME, and Palmetto Homes to develop the project, known as Block 45. Representatives for Atlantic Pacific could not immediately be reached for comment.

According to a June 26 memo written by Miami-Dade’s procurement contracting manager Basia Pruna, a county evaluation committee ranked Atlantic Pacific’s proposal ahead of the one submitted by 13th Floor/Adler/Cornerstone.

“Atlantic Pacific’s approach was community-oriented with 60 percent of the overall residential space being dedicated to workforce and affordable housing, including three-bedroom units to accommodate families,” Pruna wrote. “The proposal design promotes pedestrian living and use of mass transit by providing numerous retail and restaurant spaces, as well as shared amenities for all residents regardless of income levels.”

Atlantic Pacific is offering to pay the county $15 million for the land, of which $9.48 million would go back to the development team in consideration for the number of affordable and workforce housing units built. The county would also receive 3.5 percent of the project’s estimated $15.9 million in annual revenue.

In the company’s application, Atlantic Pacific COO Kenneth Naylor boasted Block 45 would help level the disparity in Miami’s downtown, which is oversaturated with condos and apartments that a majority of city residents cannot afford.

“Thousands of expensive luxury units have been and will continue to be, delivered into this marketplace, forcing much of our workforce out of this community,” Naylor wrote. “We will maximize the number of workforce housing units, creating a true mixed-income community.”

Steven Hudson, 309 Dunbar Road home

The CEO of a Toronto financial services firm just purchased a Palm Beach home from a longtime South Florida realtor for $9.8 million.

Steven Hudson, the CEO of ECN Capital, bought the 7,169-square-foot home at 309 Dunbar Road from Elizabeth Sorrel for 1,366 per square foot.

The Palm Beach home was built in 2016 and is near the bayside of Dunbar Road. The colonial home has five bedrooms, five full baths and two half-bathrooms. Other amenities include large patios, a pool, spa and gardens.

Hudson made a name for himself providing financing for equipment and vehicle dealers shortly after the recession. His company, Element Financial Corp., grew its assets from $20 million in 2011 to $25 billion in 2016, after buying GE Capital’s fleet management business for $8.9 billion in 2015. It became one of the largest fleet management companies in the world. The company split into two separate entities recently, with Hudson heading ECN Capital, which has an office in Boca Raton.

Sorrel is an agent with Sotheby’s International Realty and has lived in Palm Beach for the past 20 years, according to Sotheby’s International’s website. Sorrel purchased an existing home on the property for $2.73 million in June 2014 and tore it down to build the Colonial-style house, property records show.

The house was listed for $9.98 million in May.

Hudson is one of many high net worth private equity or investment managers to buy a residence in Palm Beach in recent years. Billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin has spent at least $250 million over the past six years acquiring property for a huge compound at Blossom Way in Palm Beach.

More wealthy individuals from the Northeast could migrate to South Florida in coming years, according to some tax attorneys, due to changes in President Trump’s tax law limiting the deductions of state and local income taxes. 

Thomas J. Baltimore of Park Hotels and Resorts (Credit: REIT and Pixabay)

Work at a real estate investment trust? Looks like your company probably thinks your labor is worth 57 times less than that of your boss, wherever he or she is today.

The CEOs of the top 100 REITs make even higher salaries in relation to their underlings than the rest of the REIT pack, according to report from industry consultancy FPL Associates, earning 77 times the employee average.

When REITs are broken down by market sectors, wider divides emerge. For self-storage and multifamily REITS, the CEO-to-employee pay ratio is 132 to 1 and 129 to 1 respectively.

In a particularly startling example, the median employee at Park Hotels & Resorts made just $21,082 in 2017, while its CEO Thomas J. Baltimore, Jr. made $12 million, the Wall Street Journal reported. That’s a gap of 567 to 1.

However, some REIT execs and observers say the data is flawed. Tom Morey, general counsel at Park Hotel, told the Journal that if only full-time employees were considered its company pay ratio would sit at a much more equitable 64 to 1.

And besides, Park Hotels’ investors have “expressed minimal interest” in the issue, he said. [WSJ] — Will Parker 

Clockwise from the top left: Miramar Park of Commerce, Gallery at Beach Place, and Prologis Beacon Centre Business Park

Spirit Airlines expands lease at Miramar Park of Commerce

Spirit Airlines is reaching new heights at the Miramar Park of Commerce.

The airline is expanding its corporate headquarters by 26,287 square feet. It first signed a lease at the 5-million-square-foot business park in 1999. At the time, the company inked a 56,200-square-foot lease at 2800 Executive Way.

The expansion now brings its foothold in the park to 97,100 square feet. Spirit Airlines is the eighth largest commercial airline in North America, with its main hub at Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport.

Sunbeam Properties was represented by Maridee Bell and Lauren Pace of Sunbeam Properties & Development. Spirit Airlines was represented by Rod Loschiavo and David Matthews of JLL.

Wedding Venue inks lease at Marriott’s BeachPlace Towers

Wedding venue and event hall company Crystal Ballroom is committing itself to a 13,000-square-foot long-term lease at the Gallery at Beach Place, located at 17 South Fort Lauderdale Beach Boulevard.

The open-air retail property sits at the entrance of the 19-story Marriott’s BeachPlace Towers hotel.

The property recently underwent renovations, including painting its exterior and interior walls, remodeling its bathrooms and common areas and installing new floors, furniture and awnings.

Tenants include Lulu’s Bait Shack, Maui Nix Surf Shop, CVS, Escapology, Crocs, Häagen Dazs, and Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.

Continental Real Estate Companies’ Rafael Romero and Ariel Bernstein represented the landlord, Thor Equities.

Warehouse reaches 100% occupancy at Prologis Beacon Centre

Cooper General Global Services, Inc. just inked a massive 153,292-square-foot lease at Prologis Beacon Centre Business Park in Doral.

The lease brings the 224,000-square-foot warehouse at 8501 Northwest 17th Street to 100 percent occupancy. The business provides communications systems and logistical services.

State Street Realty’s George Pino and Brian Cabielles represented the landlord, Prologis.

Nestio CEO and co-founder Caren Maio (Credit: Getty Images)

Residential listings startup Nestio has raised $4.5 million from several major New York developers — a sign of their growing desire to invest in the burgeoning real estate tech sector.

Investors in the latest round include Rudin Ventures and the Moinian Group’s venture arm Currency M, along with the Durst Organization, LeFrak Ventures and Lightstone Group affiliate Torch Venture Capital, said Nestio CEO and co-founder Caren Maio.

The round was co-led by Trinity Ventures, which also led Nestio’s $8 million Series A in December 2015, and Camber Creek, a New York City-based venture capital firm focused on real estate tech.

According to Maio, the “strategic growth round” brings Nestio’s total haul to $16.35 million. The new funds will be used to develop additional marketing tools for Nestio’s landlord and manager clients.

The New York-based startup, which launched in 2011, lets property owners, managers and brokers with large books of business track, manage and market their rental listings. Over the last few quarters, the company has rolled new marketing tools — including consumer-facing websites for its clients.

“[We’re] focused on the ultimate arbiters of inventory — owners, operators, management companies and brokers with books of exclusives,” Maio said.

The increased focus on owners and management — and not just brokers — is what drove Camber Creek’s interest in the round, said Jeffrey Berman, a general partner at Camber Creek.

“What multifamily owners/managers try to solve for is vacancy loss,” he said, referring to a competitive rental market where renters are currently calling the shots. “They want their apartments on the market for as little time as possible, and want to make sure the information in the listing is controlled and uniform.”

On average, Nestio claims it has helped clients reduce days on market by more than 20 percent. Currently, Nestio has “hundreds of thousands” of units on its platform, according to Maio, who said that its inventory rose 250 percent over the last 12 months. Nestio facilitated nearly $600 million worth of transactions during the last 12 months, the company said.

The backing from some of New York’s biggest real estate players comes amid a wave of investment by owners and operators, who see value in investing in — and using — new real estate technology.

Overall, VC investors poured $654.7 million into real estate tech startups in June, up 104 percent year-over-year, according to research firm RE:Tech.

Rudin Management — which has also invested in several companies and Fifth Wall Ventures, the real estate-focused VC fund — had been using Nestio for three years before joining the latest funding round, said Michael Rudin. He said whenever possible, the firm likes to try out products before pulling out its checkbook.

In Nestio’s case, he said, “we knew firsthand how our leasing team has been using [it] and how much it helped them in their day-to-day activities.”

Approved and proposed projects in Fort Lauderdale: 100 Las Olas, Alexan-Tarpon River, 101 Fort Lauderdale, Bahia Mar (Credit: iStock)

Trammell Crow Residential’s proposed apartment tower in downtown Fort Lauderdale was slated for 22 stories and 181 units, making it among the biggest developments in the surrounding area. Called the Alexan-Tarpon River, the high-rise at 501 Southeast Avenue was to be the latest addition to the rapidly developing city skyline.

Though opposed by some community groups over what they saw as another case of excessive development, the project was on track for approval. It appeared to have the support of the powerful city commission, the five-member local government body that votes on development projects. But in March when four new commissioners were sworn in, three of them pledged to craft a “smarter growth” strategy for the city. That includes prioritizing the city’s infrastructure needs by making sure water and wastewater systems can accommodate additional growth, ensuring new developments take into account traffic conditions, and a focus on protecting its coastline.

Some developers took it as a sign of trouble ahead, and for Trammell Crow’s project, the gears indeed started to slow. Facing sharp criticism from the new officials over the building’s height and design — and following some heated public meetings — the developer reduced the building height to 14 stories. It also promised to reduce the number of apartments to 120. The developer is now expected to return in August for the latest design approval.

Trammell Crow’s Jim Berardinelli declined to comment for this article.

Since the three city commissioners assumed their roles, they have signaled a major shift in how the city of 180,000 will approach future development projects, according to real estate pros and local officials. The days of fast-track project approval are over, they say.

The added scrutiny could have an impact on projects already in the pipeline or in early planning stages, with some experts fearing the new approach could lead developers to look beyond Fort Lauderdale. Proposals for residential developments near the beach could also be in jeopardy, with each of the new commissioners having said they would like to see less coastline construction.

New commissioners

Mayor Dean Trantalis, who was elected and took office in March, is an at-large commissioner. The other newly-elected commissioners are Vice Mayor Ben Sorensen and Steve Glassman. All three have their sights set on tightening control over the kinds of projects the city has long supported, and now they’re in the majority. Heather Moraitis, the fourth new commissioner — Robert McKinzie has been there since 2014 — has shown greater support for development-friendly investments.

Less than two months after Trantalis took office as mayor, the city voted in May to walk away from its highly publicized streetcar project that came with more than $100 million in federal and state backing. The previous commission in February had voted in support.

Called the Wave, the 2.8-mile system would significantly reduce traffic in the city, according to its advocates, but would also end up costing $145 million. Trantalis, Glassman and Sorensen each voted to withdraw from it, while commissioners McKinzie and Moraitis maintained their support. A short time after Fort Lauderdale decided not to go forward, the Broward County Commission officially voted to cancel the project.

The mayor said the previous commission “really gave developers everything they asked for.” The city itself, he added, has in the past “this idea that bigger is better, but failed to understand that that philosophy is no longer being followed.”

The new commission, Trantalis said, will not stall development, but seek to have projects blend better with their surrounding neighborhoods. That is something property owners have not sought to do, and the city had not previously required, he said. As an example, he pointed to the Amaray Las Olas.

The 30-story, luxury rental tower was a joint venture of the Rockefeller Group and Stiles. The partnership developed the 254-unit apartment building, at 215 Southeast Eighth Avenue, on a 1.25-acre site. Trantalis said Amaray Las Olas sticks out among the one- and two-story buildings that surround it, an eyesore on the neighborhood. Last year, the property was sold for $134 million to GID Development Group, a Boston-based developer, property management and acquisition firm. That kind of project likely wouldn’t make the cut with the new commission.

Future developers may want to use a different project as a playbook for success, however.

Kolter Group’s 100 Las Olas, which city officials have praised, is poised to be downtown’s tallest building at 46 stories. Trantalis said the project works because it is was well within the city’s Downtown Regional Activity Center guidelines, which promote the construction of large-scale, mixed-use projects.

Once completed in 2020, the tower will feature 121 condominiums, a 238-key Hyatt Centric hotel and 8,500 square feet of restaurants and retail on the ground floor. The Kolter Group broke ground on 100 Las Olas a year ago.

Scrutiny on the beach

Bob Vail, who heads Kolter’s urban development division, said the city is “clearly on the rise and there’s a lot of demand for office and residential space there. I think [the mayor] has a vision for the city that he’s developed over years, but he’s also got a practical side where he understands the fundamentals and logistics of what a city needs.” Parking, he said, is one of those needs.

But another Kolter project may face more resistance. The company is now assembling a proposal for a condominium on a public parking lot along the city’s beachfront area. The developer has promised to replace all of the lost parking spaces, and the project is in the review process. It heads to the planning and zoning board in August and if approved, would then go before the city commission.

One already approved project that officials say may have had a more difficult time passing the new commission is the massive Bahia Mar development on Fort Lauderdale Beach. The previous commission approved developer Jimmy Tate’s plans for seven high-rise buildings, comprising 651 apartments, a 256-key hotel and a yachting-amenities complex, all on city-owned land.

The mayor criticized the project, saying it “has taken a large open space” and that it adds “a significant amount of traffic. There’s no plan for public transportation enhancement,” he said. “It’s a shame that our city staff found it to be acceptable.”

The commission now is more sensitive to preserving vulnerable coastal areas Glassman said, and after having reviewed some studies, would think twice about supporting another development there. “We don’t need to grow so much more in the beach,” he said. “Maybe we need to see the dust settle first.”

Other areas in the city are ripe for development, he said, like west of downtown toward the Sistrunk corridor, and north across Broward Boulevard. There, trendy neighborhoods are emerging, including Flagler Village and the FAT Village, a four-block stretch of converted warehouses that feature a number of bars, restaurants and apartments. The nearby MASS art district also has taken shape, largely from converted older buildings.

But Fort Lauderdale Beach has long been a prime location for developers and that hasn’t changed. Along that stretch, real estate investors Aiton “AJ” Yaari and Lior Avidor own a 4.5-acre assemblage, which they have listed without a price. The site is being marketed with the option to build a luxury development with a hotel component, nearby the landmark Elbo Room bar.

Yaari said the marketed development possibilities are in line with the current zoning regulations in the area, although no application has been submitted. He is aware that a majority of the commissioners see a different direction for the city’s future development. He remains hopeful, while sounding a note of caution.

Miami-Dade condo sales fell back down again last week, likely thanks in part to the July 4 holiday.

The county recorded 109 closings for a total of $55 million, up from the previous week’s $79.2 million sales volume. Condos last week sold for an average price of about $503,000 or $366 per square foot.

The priciest deal was the $5.45 million sale of unit 1002 at Mansions at Acqualina. The 4,609-square-foot condo traded hands for nearly $1,200 per square foot. It was listed with Yansy Checa. Marla Cohen brought the buyer.

The second most expensive condo closing last week was the $3.5 million sale of unit 1204-S at Oceana Key Biscayne. The 1,873-square-foot condo was on the market for slightly over a year. Bruno Ricci represented the seller, and Giulietta Ulloa brought the buyer.

Closing prices in the top 10 deals ranged from about $1.5 million to the $5.5 million Mansions at Acqualina unit.

Here’s a breakdown of the top 10 sales from July 1 to July 7. Click on the map for more information:

Most expensive
Mansions at Acqualina #1002, Sunny Isles Beach | 67 days on market | $5.45M | $1,182 psf | Listing agent: Yansy Checa | Buyer’s agent: Marla Cohen

Least expensive
Echo Aventura #603, Aventura | 77 days on market | $1.46M | $617 psf | Listing agent: Andreina Zambrano | Buyer’s agent: Luis Leal

Most days on market
Jade Residences #4101, Miami | 578 days on market | $2M | $586 psf | Listing agent: Sara Kochen | Buyer’s agent: Sara Kochen

Fewest days on market
St. Regis Bal Harbour #704S, Bal Harbour | 66 days on market | $2.55M | $1,018 psf | Listing agent: Scott Gerow | Buyer’s agent: Sheila Freed