Every day, The Real Deal rounds up South Florida’s biggest real estate news, from breaking news and scoops to announcements and deals. We update this page throughout the day. Please send any tips or deals to tips@therealdeal.com

Lawsuit seeks to halt new EB-5 regulations. Less than a month after the new EB-5 rules came out, a Florida regional center has filed a motion in federal court, seeking a temporary restraining order to halt enforcement. The company, Florida EB5 Investments, alleges the new requirements — which took effect Nov. 21 — violate the U.S. Constitution, were not properly reviewed for potential fallout and will end up killing business. [TRD]

Some roads in the Florida Keys may be abandoned due to sea-level rise. Raising three miles of Old State Road 4A in the Keys to withstand sea-level rise and king tide by 2025 could cost $75 million, according to the Miami Herald. In 2045 the costs could increase to $128 million. In 2060, the costs could rise to $181 million. Monroe County asked for $150 million to address sea-level rise for the whole county. [Miami Herald]

Joe Biden proposes $1 Trillion in new corporate taxes. Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden proposed nearly $1 trillion in new corporate taxes on Wednesday as part of a plan to bring in more revenue in order to pay for healthcare, climate, infrastructure and education costs, according to the Wall Street Journal. Part of his plan would be to tax companies like Amazon.com that show little or no U.S. tax costs. [WSJ]

The post Lawsuit seeks to stop new EB-5 regulations, some Florida Keys roads could be abandoned due to rising seas appeared first on The Real Deal Miami.

100 La Gorce Drive, Carolyn Aronson and Jeff Aronson

The founder of Cash4Gold bought a waterfront home in Miami Beach’s La Gorce Island for $19.6 million. The home sold at a 44 percent discount from its listing nearly four years ago.

Jeff Aronson and his wife Carolyn bought the 10,094-square-foot estate at 100 La Gorce Drive for $1,941 per square foot. Rapa Holdings, which is managed by Andrew Feldman, sold the property.

That sale price was a significant price chop from 2016, when it listed for $34.9 million.

Nancy Batchelor of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices EWM Realty represented the seller in the deal. The buyer was represented by Mirce Curkoski of ONE Sotheby’s International Realty.

Aronson founded Cash4Gold in 2007 and it went bankrupt in 2012 amid complaints from customers for not receiving payments. The company allowed people to mail in their gold and silver jewelry in exchange for cash without going to a pawn shop. Cash4Gold gained popularity during the recession as more people fell on hard times. The company was also known for its 2009 Super Bowl commercial featuring MC Hammer.

Aronson is now CEO of TitanFC, a American mixed martial arts promotion based out of Pompano Beach, FL that is a minor league to the Ultimate Fighting Championship. His wife Carolyn is an entrepreneur and founder of It’s a 10 Haircare brand.

The house sits on 2 acres of land and has seven bedrooms and 10 bathrooms. Built in 1952, it features a pool, patios, and spa. It also has a separate guest house, a gym and a pool house with a full kitchen.

The property includes a tennis courts and 2 boat lifts.

La Gorce Island is a private, residential island consisting of 59 high-end homes. In June 2018, Rob Arnott, who runs the asset manager Research Affiliates bought a waterfront spec mansion on La Gorce Island for $32 million. At the time, the deal was the most expensive purchase in Miami Beach since at least 2015.

The post Cash4Gold founder drops $20M on Miami Beach estate appeared first on The Real Deal Miami.

From left: Andrea and Renzo Rosso

Amid the annual hoopla of Miami Art Week, the top dogs at Diesel provided a sneak peek of their Wynwood condo project, which joins a wave of luxury retailers breaking into South Florida real estate development.

The Italian fashion brand’s founder Renzo Rosso and his son Andrea Rosso held court inside the Diesel Wynwood 28 sales gallery Wednesday morning, answering questions about the 143-unit project, as well as giving reporters a virtual reality tour of the building once it’s completed.

“Wynwood has a particular story,” Andrea Rosso, Diesel’s director of licensing, told The Real Deal. “Because of the creative energy here and the amazing spaces that have been created, you talk more about Wynwood and talk less about South Beach. We saw the potential to express our own design creativity.”

A rendering of the project

More than a year ago, Diesel announced it was partnering with Vicenza, Italy-based Bel Invest Group to build the “loft-style” project on a six-lot, nearly 1-acre site at 115 to 161 Northwest 28th Street. The site is next to land owned by the Related Group and Tony Cho, where both are planning a residential project on that property that may include micro condos.

Designed by Zyscovich Architects, Diesel Wynwood 28 would have 226,000 square feet of residential space and about 24,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space. It will offer 395-square-foot studios starting at $399,000, two-bedroom units starting at about 1,1000 square feet for $949,000, three-bedroom units with 1,500 square feet of living space going for $1.5 million and a pair of two-floor penthouses with rooftop terraces totaling 3,000 square feet priced at $5.5 million.
Diesel also launched a marketing campaign for the development, offering to sell 143 “one-of-a-kind” T-shirts starting at just under $1.6 million. With the shirt, the buyer would receive a condo.

As Diesel has expanded into interior design and home furnishings in recent years, jumping into real estate construction and development was a natural progression, Andrea Rosso said.

“In a year and a half, you will see a big building that is completed furnished by Diesel Living,” he said. “In the future, general contracting will be one of our primary purposes. It is difficult for fashion companies to go into the design field. We believe we are approaching it the right way.”

The virtual reality tour takes users through the proposed building from the street all the way up to a penthouse rooftop terrace.

“We studied how the sunlight would hit the building from the first floor to the top floor,” Andrea Rosso said. “So if the inside of a unit is dark, we used lighter colors and materials and darker tones for units with more light coming in. We want to give a feeling of living in a space that has the right balance.”

Diesel Wynwood 28 also marks the first U.S. project for Bel Invest, which also has offices in Miami, Berlin and Barcelona. The real estate investment firm assembled the lots between 2015 and 2017, paying a combined $9.6 million.

Diesel joins Missoni and Fendi, two other luxury retail brands breaking into real estate development. Missoni and OKO Group are building Missoni Baia in Edgewater and Fendi and the Chateau Group completed Fendi Chateau in Surfside two years ago. It’s the first Fendi-branded condo building in the world. Related and Dezer Development also just completed construction of the Residences by Armani/Casa in Sunny Isles Beach.

The post Diesel family dishes on Wynwood condo project appeared first on The Real Deal Miami.

Rich Sarkis (Photos by Emily Assiran)

Rich Sarkis’ office has no imposing mahogany table or wall of photos featuring him with celebrities or industry powerbrokers. 

His white desk is largely barren, save for a few essentials. But Sarkis’ Midtown office is a long way from the tiny Chelsea space where he co-founded his company, Reonomy, back in 2013.

The real estate data and analytics firm has grown massively since then. That growth has been fueled by some of the largest investors in real estate venture capital, including SoftBank, Bain Capital Ventures and Sapphire Ventures.

Last month, the startup — which has intel on 50 million commercial properties across the U.S. and claims to covers 99 percent of the market — closed on a $60 million series D funding round, backed by Citi Ventures and Wells Fargo. 

That round brought its total cash raised up to $128 million and is going to be used for international expansion to Canada and the U.K. The firm, which counts the likes of CBRE and Brookfield as clients, will also use the capital to build additional products for financial services clients. 

Sarkis, who is 40, grew up in London, where he went to a French school, then moved to the U.S. to attend Williams College in Massachusetts, where he majored in economics and psychology. Before graduating in 2001, he launched a series of businesses, including an online platform that imported textbooks and sold them to college students at a discount. But he largely abandoned it after big U.S. book retailers allegedly threatened to take action against his European suppliers. The experiment provided good fodder for his application to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, which admitted him in 2005. 

From there, Sarkis joined the global consulting firm McKinsey & Company, where he became an associate partner, focusing on financial services. In 2012, he quit and went back to his entrepreneurial roots. It was then that he met Charlie Oshman, a data engineer with experience in commercial real estate. Together, the pair co-founded Reonomy, which now occupies the top two floors at 767 Third Avenue and has about 120 employees. Sarkis lives with his wife and two kids in Manhattan.

Planter box
Reonomy started out at 247 West 30th Street in an office that Sarkis equated to the size of a supply closet. His wife, Stephanie, whom he met at Williams, wanted to celebrate the fact that the company had opened its own office, and she gave him this planter box. “It was ours,” Sarkis said. “And so, my wife’s like, ‘Here you go, office warming.’”

Calculator
Sarkis still uses his Hewlett Packard 48G high school calculator (which has his former nickname “Rick” carved into its shell) to do quick math. While the calculator still comes in handy, it is a far cry from the calculations Reonomy does. The firm’s database pulls info from hundreds of sources and uses algorithms and artificial intelligence to generate property information for investors, developers and other real estate players. 

Mug
This mug was molded (with help) by Sarkis’ daughter when she was two (she’s now eight). But it’s been through the ringer. It was glued back together after one of his employees borrowed (and broke) it. Sarkis, who attends investor meetings in jeans and a hoodie, by no means cuts an intimidating figure. But the employees were “all scared to tell me.” 

Poker Chips
Sarkis tinkers with these poker chips, but they also come in handy for the company’s monthly poker nights. Games are always No-Limit Texas Hold’em, and buy-ins rarely exceed $20. Pizza and sandwiches are usually served. Outside of the office, Sarkis steers clear of gambling. “I have enough risk in my life overseeing a venture-backed thing,” he said.

BobbleHead
Sarkis has played in a fantasy football league with college friends for 20 years. This purple bobblehead was sent by Yahoo! (which previously hosted the league) after Sarkis’ team, dubbed Eurotrash, won the season. He’s held onto it because the colors remind him of Williams and the college’s mascot: the purple cow.

Soccer Jersey
Like many of his English brethren, Sarkis is an avid soccer fan. He grew up backing the Tottenham Hotspurs. To recognize Reonomy’s sixth anniversary, his staff gave him this jersey, which was from the club’s 1991 FA Cup Final win — its most famous game. It was also signed by Sarkis’ favorite player, Paul Gascoigne. “I’m very rarely surprised by gifts or anything like that in my life,” he said.

The post At the desk of: Rich Sarkis appeared first on The Real Deal Miami.

Moishe Mana and a rendering of 420 South Hibiscus Drive (Credit: Getty Images and iStock)

Developer Moishe Mana sold a 1937 home in Miami Beach to a buyer who plans to build a new modern mansion on the property.

Mana’s Martini Realty LLC sold the 5,492-square-foot home at 420 South Hibiscus Drive on Hibiscus Island to 420 S Hibiscus Drive SFH LLC, a Delaware company, for $12 million.

Mana, who has amassed a huge portfolio of land in Wynwood and downtown Miami, paid $5.2 million for the home in 2013.

Mana went before the Miami Beach Design Review Board in October seeking approval for a new house for the hidden buyer. Mana proposed building a roughly 9,800-square-foot, two-story mansion with a rooftop atrium, landscaping, water features, and a separate guest suite, according to plans filed with the city.

About two years ago, a company tied to Mana paid $5.9 million for a waterfront spec home in North Miami Beach’s Eastern Shores neighborhood. He also owns homes in Delray Beach.

In October, the Mana Group released a much-anticipated construction timeline for his major redevelopment of downtown Miami, where he’s spent more than $350 million assembling roughly 45 buildings on or near Flagler Street. A plan designed by Zyscovich Architects showed 11 buildings between Southeast First Street and North Miami Avenue that would be delivered between the first quarter of 2021 and the fourth quarter of 2024.

In addition to his development plans in Miami, he runs Mana Wynwood, a convention center and events venue with art galleries and installations.

The post Moishe Mana sells Hibiscus Island home for $12M appeared first on The Real Deal Miami.

Renderings of Brickell City Centre and Magic City

In Miami, property owners who control more than 9 acres of land can apply for a wide array of zoning changes. They’re called Special Area Plans, or SAPs, and the legislation has allowed for massive, planned projects like Brickell City Centre, River Landing Shops & Residences, the redevelopment of the Miami Design District, and the expansion of the Miami Jewish Home. It has also allowed for future mega-projects like the Magic City Innovation District in Little Haiti, Miami Produce Center in Allapattah, and Mana Wynwood.

On Jan. 15, the city of Miami’s Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board will discuss proposed legislation that could do away with SAPs altogether.

Rendering of Brickell City Center

The board voted Wednesday to discuss a rule at its Jan. 15 meeting that would recommend that the city remove SAPs from the Miami 21 zoning code. In the 8 to 1 vote, board member Chris Collins was the lone dissenter.

The ultimate decision on whether to keep SAPs rests with the Miami City Commission. But even if the resolution isn’t approved, board members hope that it will tell elected leaders that SAPs are not beneficial to Miami’s existing neighborhoods and residents.

“I don’t want to send them a weak message,” said the resolution’s proposer, board member Alex Dominguez. “Either get rid of the damn thing … or let us move on.”

Several residents and community activists said SAPs are threatening neighborhoods, clogging roads with additional traffic, and speeding up gentrification. At the very least, community activists want a moratorium on future SAPs until regulations are put in place that govern development and require that affordable housing be offered in exchange for zoning.

“When I sell my home, I will have to leave because I will not be able to afford to live here,” said Jordan Levin, who lives in a house in Buena Vista East that she bought 20 years ago. “Please put a moratorium on these things. They’re the Godzillas of development. Development should not just be for the developers. Development should be for the city.”

Rendering of Magic City

Sue Trone, the city’s chief of community planning, argued that SAPs can help parts of Miami move away from the “segregated” uses advocated in the city’s 1959 comprehensive plan into a more mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly environment. And while reforms are needed, Trone argued that SAPs can “do a lot of good for the city.” Land use attorney Neisen Kasdin also begged the board not to “throw the baby out with the bath water” and to instead pursue reforms.

Dominguez, though, said it was best if the city rid itself of SAPs as soon as possible. “Time is our biggest enemy. The more time we spend kicking things down the road and having meetings, the more developers are going to develop [SAPs] and we’ll have more traffic and we’ll see more people getting displaced,” he said.

Board member Melody Torrens said stopping future SAPs is “starting to make a lot of sense.” Still, she said the commission might not accept the idea, and while reforms are being debated, developers will continue to push SAPs. “If we’re not going to stop them completely, then we definitely need a moratorium while we go through [the legislation],” Torrens said.

Board chairman Charles Garavaglia agreed with Dominguez that passing a rule ending SAPs would make a stronger impact with politicians. “I just think we should stop SAPs and send that message,” Garavaglia said, “and, ultimately, the commission will do what they want.”

The post Miami may be closer to banning Special Area Plans appeared first on The Real Deal Miami.

Breather CEO Bryan Murphy (Credit: LinkedIn and iStock)

Breather, an on-demand workspace company, fired at least 10 percent of its staff Thursday.

The Montreal-based firm, which provides office space across 10 different cities and has more than 100 employees, laid off at least 16 staffers, The Real Deal has learned. In a post on LinkedIn, Breather’s director of research, Anja Jamrozik shared that she and others were leaving the company.

“Today, along with so many talented, creative and resourceful coworkers, I got laid off,” Otto wrote.

Breather would not disclose how many staffers it had laid off, or confirm that layoffs had occurred. A statement attributed to CEO Bryan Murphy said that the company had grown 250 percent in the past year.

“We have made changes to make sure that resources are aligned with our mission of providing customers with frictionless access to private, productive space as a service and to achieve profitability by the end of next year,” the statement said.

According to a spreadsheet Otto shared, the layoffs include software developers, customer service representatives and account managers. At the time of writing, 16 people had provided information indicating they were laid off.

It’s an uneasy time for the co-working industry, as firms big and small face challenges. After shelving plans to go public and narrowly avoiding bankruptcy, WeWork is still trying to chart a path toward profitability. The co-working giant let go of roughly 4,000 of its 12,000 employees last month. Also last month, New York-based firm Corporate Suites was briefly evicted from its location at 1001 Avenue of the Americas after a payment dispute.

Breather has raised a total $122 million in funding rounds led by Menlo Venture and RRE Ventures. Across 300 buildings across 10 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco. The company says its clients include Pandora, Spotify, Anheuser-Busch, Apple, Uber, Google and Facebook.

The company has experienced its own growing pains and has replaced some of its top executives in the past year. After its co-founder Julien Smith stepped aside from his role as CEO last year, he was replaced by former eBay executive Bryan Murphy in January. Last month, the firm hired a new head of real estate, former Regus executive Dan Suozzi.

This story is breaking. Return to this page for updates.

The post Breather bloodbath: Flex-office startup fires at least 10% of staff appeared first on The Real Deal Miami.

Rattan Chadha, Executive Chairman & Founder of CitizenM

CitizenM scored a $48.3 million construction loan to build a new hotel at the former site of Perricone’s Marketplace & Cafe in Brickell.

The hotelier secured the loan from Manufacturers and Traders Trust Co. for the 252-key hotel at 955 South Miami Avenue in Miami.

The Netherlands-based hotel chain is also planning to build hotels in Miami Beach, on the corner of Alton and Lincoln roads, as well as in downtown Miami as part of Miami Worldcenter.

The Brickell hotel will span about 160,000 square feet and will be 18 stories tall. Steven J. Perricone, the owner of Perricone’s Marketplace & Cafe, said in 2017 that he has a five-year lease on the property, and could open a restaurant as part of the new development.

CitizenM bought the site from Perricone for $16.2 million in 2017.

Brickell is seeing a number of new hotels. Habitat Group is constructing a project at 239 Southwest 9th Street with 50 hotel rooms and 50 condos that is planned for completion in 2021. In August, Robert Finvarb and Tony Cho closed on a $67 million loan for a mixed-use hotel near Brickell City Centre at 115 Southwest Eighth Street, records show.

The post CitizenM scores $48M loan to build Brickell hotel appeared first on The Real Deal Miami.

2021-2035 Meridian Avenue, Rani Hussami and Colin Rockson

A company tied to AquaBlue Group owner Philippe Harari is looking to sell a South Beach apartment complex for $13.9 million

Greenview Courtyard, at 2021-2035 Meridian Avenue, across from the Miami Beach Golf Club, includes three buildings with a total of 30 units. The price breaks down to about $463,000 per apartment.

Harari’s Greenview Courtyard Inc. paid $2 million for the property in 2002, records show. Harari owns AquaBlue, a Miami Beach-based luxury homebuilder.

Marcus & Millichap’s Rani Hussami and Colin Rockson of the Hussami Rockson Group have the listing.

The apartment complex includes 20 one-bedroom, one-bathroom units; and 10 two-bedroom, two-bathroom units. The average size is 853 square feet.

One building was built in 2008 and the other two were built in 1950. They were renovated in 2007, with hardwood floors, recessed lighting, impact windows, kitchens with stainless steel appliances and Italian quartz countertops, according to the brokers.

The multifamily market has remained strong in South Florida amid demand for properties from domestic and offshore buyers, commercial brokers say. Investors from New York and California, in particular, are looking to park their money in South Florida, driven in part by tax benefits and the new rent control legislation in both states.

In Miami Beach, Miami developer Amanda De Seta paid $5.4 million or $491,000 per unit in June for an 11-unit apartment building in South Beach with flexible zoning. In July, an investment group led by Jonathan Politano bought a 70-unit waterfront apartment assemblage in North Beach for $7.3 million.

The post AquaBlue Group owner lists South Beach apartments for $14M appeared first on The Real Deal Miami.

Rendering of the project and John Catsimatidis (Credit: Arquitectonica via Tampa Bay Times)

Greek billionaire John Catsimatidis landed approval for what could become the tallest condo tower on the west coast of Florida.

Catsimatidis’ Red Apple Group received site plan approval from the St. Petersburg’s Development Review Commission on Wednesday for a $300 million mixed-use project, the Tampa Bay Times reported. The project would include a 45-story condo building, 20-story hotel, roughly 20,000 square feet of office space, and an over 800-space parking garage. Miami-based Arquitectonica is the architect.

Construction could begin in the spring, although Red Apple has to meet conditions set by the city. The project is over two years in the making, Red Apple’s attorney said, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

The developer will need approval from the Federal Aviation Administration for a 515-foot tower. It would surpass the tallest building in the city, ONE St. Petersburg.

Catsimatidis’ company paid $16.5 million for the development site two years ago.

The New York developer made headlines earlier this year when he declined to make a contribution to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. [Tampa Bay Times] – Katherine Kallergis

The post Catsimatidis scores approval for $300M tower in St. Petersburg appeared first on The Real Deal Miami.

55 Palm Avenue (Credit: Realtor and iStock)

Metals executive Jesús Alberto Arias closed on a waterfront mansion on Palm Island, records show.

Arias, chairman of Sierra Metals, paid $11.8 million for the 13,089-square-foot home at 55 Palm Avenue in Miami Beach. Todd David Snyder and Jessica Molly Snyder sold the eight-bedroom, 12-bathroom estate.

The house was listed for $13.8 million with Lourdes Alatriste of Engel & Völkers. Alatriste declined to comment on the deal. Darin Tansey of Douglas Elliman represented the buyer, according to Realtor.com.

Arias is also founder and president of Arias Resource Capital Management, and is on the board of Largo Resources Ltd. and Dia Bras Exploration, Inc., according to the Wall Street Journal. He previously worked for Goldman Sachs as managing director and head of equity research for metals and mining in the U.S., Canada and Latin America.

The Palm Island house sits on a 30,000-square-foot lot and last sold for $11.95 million in 2009. That means the Snyders sold the property at a slight loss a decade after they purchased it. The home was mostly built in 2008, with a small portion dating back to 1928.

Last year, reggaeton singer and songwriter Nicky Jam paid $3.4 million for a non-waterfront home at 240 Palm Island Drive. Rapper and music producer Bryan “Birdman” Williams has also called the island home.

The post Metals executive mines Miami Beach home appeared first on The Real Deal Miami.

Here are a couple of real estate events coming up next week:

Host: Bisnow
Date: Dec. 12
Time: 8 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Bisnow is hosting its South Florida Construction & Development event at the InterContinental Miami, 100 Chopin Plaza from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. This event will feature networking opportunities, along with discussions on the development trends captured by the culturally significant projects coming to the region. Speakers include Jeff Weinstein of UIA Management and Santiago Vanegas of Habitat Group.

Host: ULI Southeast Florida/Caribbean
Date: Dec. 12
Time: 5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

ULI Southeast Florida/Caribbean is hosting its Holiday Social at The Wharf Fort Lauderdale, 20 West Las Olas Boulevard. Attend this free event to enjoy an evening of connecting with professionals from across the industry.

To submit more industry events, please reach out to events@therealdeal.com.

The post Mark your calendars: These are South Florida’s top real estate events next week appeared first on The Real Deal Miami.

5400 Hammock Drive and Timbaland (Credit: Getty Images)

Grammy Award-winning record producer and rapper Timbaland bought a mansion in Coral Gables, property records reveal.

The musician, singer, songwriter and DJ purchased the home at 5400 Hammock Drive in his name, Timothy Z. Mosley. Luxury homebuilder Balli Development Group, led by Giorgio Balli, sold the property.

Timbaland, who’s worked with artists such as Ginuwine, Aaliyah, Missy Elliott, Rick Ross, Madonna, Drake and Jay-Z, paid $7.95 million for the seven-bedroom, 8,600-square-foot home in the Gables.

Stefano Balli of Compass’ Audrey Ross team represented his father, the developer. Balli declined to comment on the buyer’s identity. Toni Schrager and Sandra Metrakos of Brown Harris Stevens in Miami represented Timbaland.

Stefano Balli worked on designing and developing the home with Giorgio Balli. It was completed in August. The mansion, in the gated Hammock Lakes community, features imported marble, granite and custom woodwork. It’s surrounded by mature oak trees and other native landscaping.

The non-waterfront house was listed for nearly $8.6 million.

Nearly two years ago, Timbaland sued to evict a failed buyer of his mansion at 10395 Southwest 67th Avenue near Pinecrest. Property records show the rapper still owns the house.

Timbaland also closed on a double unit at Aria on the Bay in Miami’s Arts & Entertainment District in January 2018.

The post Timbaland drops $8M on Coral Gables mansion appeared first on The Real Deal Miami.

Related Group building at 315 Biscayne Boulevard and Jorge Pérez (Credit: Google Maps)

The Related Group is ready to sell its headquarters in downtown Miami.

The Miami-based developer, known as the biggest condo builder in South Florida, listed its 35,341-square foot headquarters at 315 Biscayne Boulevard. It’s on the market unpriced.

Related occupies the office space in the building and will move out by the end of 2020, according to a release. Related previously announced it was moving to Coconut Grove.

CBRE’s Christian Lee and Jose Lobón are listing the building, while CBRE’s Maggie Kurtz and Kevin Gonzalez are handling office leasing.

Stephen Rutchik of Colliers International South Florida, who is not involved in the deal, said a possible buyer could be a hedge fund or investment firm, both of which are deciding to relocate to South Florida for the tax benefits.

The four-story building includes 9,243 square feet of restaurant space, occupied by Wolfgang’s Steakhouse, and 26,098 square feet of office space on the third and fourth level, currently available for lease.

The property was built in 2005 and designed by Arquitectonica. It’s near the construction site of Aston Martin Residences and the Epic.

The prolific condo development firm has diversified in recent years, expanding its affordable housing arm, growing its multifamily and mixed-use divisions, and heading to the Southwestern U.S.

The post Related Group lists downtown Miami HQ appeared first on The Real Deal Miami.

Christopher Nassetta and Doubletree by Hilton Doral managed by Driftwood Acquisitions and Development

A lodging industry honcho said hotel companies need to do more to reduce the effects of global warming — before environmental regulators across the globe do it for them.

“Even if you don’t believe that we are, our industry is a huge contributor to energy usage and carbon output,” said Christopher Nassetta, CEO and president of Hilton Worldwide. “One of our No. 1 priorities is to make sure we are all responsible.”

Addressing attendees at an annual investors conference hosted by hotel builder Driftwood Acquisitions and Development, Nassetta pointed to the grassroots movement spreading through Europe known as “flight shaming” that encourages individuals to find alternate modes of transportation other than airplanes. “That is not helping the airlines,” Nassetta said. “And how do people get to our hotels? Planes.”

Nassetta, the keynote speaker at the event at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, said he is also concerned by the rise in populism and nationalism. “That’s not good when you close borders,” he said. “People don’t see the world, and travel is made more difficult.”

With less than a month left in 2019, Nassetta said he sees the hotel market hitting a small slump in the future. “I think the economy is going to be weaker than it has been in the next year or two,” he said. “I don’t believe it will be a recession.”

A national market presentation by Bobby Bowers, a senior vice president for STR, backed up Nassetta’s assessment. Through the first 10 months of 2019, revenue per available room nationwide grew by less than 1 percent, while supply grew by 2 percent.

For the Miami market, revenue per available room was negative 3 percent and the occupancy rate was 75 percent. “Occupancy is a little bit negative, as we move into next year,” Bowers said. “The rate of growth has been on a slow trajectory.”

Nassetta also said the proliferation of new niche hotel brands is nearing its peak. “I think we are getting close,” he said. “We are launching a mid-scale lifestyle brand we have been working on, and then I think we will take a break.”

The post Hilton CEO warns against ignoring global warming threat appeared first on The Real Deal Miami.

The Bristol and Pamela Applebaum

A family tied to one of the country’s largest drugstore chains snagged a unit at The Bristol in West Palm Beach for $11 million, as the condo development nears sellout.

Pamela Applebaum, acting as a trustee of the Eugene Applebaum family trust, purchased unit 2003 at the building. The Applebaum family owned Arbor Drugs, a Troy, Michigan-based drugstore chain that CVS bought for $1.48 billion in 1998.

Before it was sold, Arbor Drugs was the eighth largest drugstore chain in America, according to the Detroit Free Press. The 195-acre Jewish Community Center in West Bloomfield, Michigan bears the family’s name.

Flagler Investors, led by Al Adelson and Gene Golub, developed the The Bristol, a 25-story, 69-unit luxury tower at 1100 South Flagler Drive. Units range from 3,600 square feet to 14,000 square feet.

The project is the first new luxury condo building in West Palm Beach in the past decade. The development group has sold almost all of the units, and was able to attract estate owners in Palm Beach who were looking to downsize, according to Adelson.

Buyers include beauty mogul Sydell Miller, who closed on a full-floor penthouse for $42.6 million in March. Her Palm Beach estate sold this week for $105 million, tying the record for the largest residential sale ever in Palm Beach. In September, Miami developer James Harpel also bought a unit at The Bristol for $7.9 million.

The post Drugstore scion pays $11M for unit at The Bristol appeared first on The Real Deal Miami.

Stephen Ross and a rendering of One Flagler (Credit: Getty Images)

The Related Companies is bringing back plans to build a 25-story office tower in downtown West Palm Beach.

Related, led by Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, will go before the city’s Downtown Action Committee on Wednesday. It will seek approval for the Class A building at 134 and 142 Lakeview Avenue and 809 South Flagler Drive, according to plans filed with the city.

More hedge funds and financial firms are expected to move to downtown West Palm, Fort Lauderdale and Miami to take advantage of changes in the federal tax code. That is anticipated to generate demand for new Class A office space.

David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, who designed One World Trade Center in New York City, is designing One Flagler. The building would have more than 200,000 square feet of office space, a lobby, restaurant and reading room on the ground floor, and public open space that would include a reflection pool. There would also be terraces on floors 8, 15 and 20.

The First Church of Christ Scientist owns the 2.47-acre site. As part of Related’s proposal, the church would remain in its historic building that was completed in 1928. The year it was completed, the structure was damaged by the Okeechobee hurricane of 1928, one of the deadliest hurricanes on record.

Related had proposed building One Flagler prior to the city approving an Okeechobee Business District in 2018. Before that, zoning in the area was limited to five stories in height.

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There is at least one thing you do not want to do while visiting a high profile broker’s office: break his stuff. When TRD spent a recent day alongside the star agent Ryan Serhant in his Manhattan office, a certain ceramic piggy bank met its end during the shoot.

“You are killing me, Real Deal,” Serhant said, picking coins up off the floor. Oops. Still, the moment made the Nest Seekers International broker reflect on his humble beginnings in the city.

“I distinctly remember being completely broke in New York City and every dollar counts,” he said.

As he mused about his start the market that made him a star, the self-professed workaholic admitted that he is in no rush to abandon it.

“In the city, the more successful real estate agents get, the less time they spend in New York,” he said, recalling advice received from Nest Seekers founder Eddie Shapiro. “Just wait for them to go to the Hamptons and you’ll be ready.”

While fellow “Million Dollar Listing: New York” stars like Fredrik Eklund set out for the sunnier climes of L.A., Serhant can only bid them a fond farewell and gleefully pick up a larger local market share.

Watch the video above to get more of his take on rival brokers leaving New York City.

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Redwood Trust’s CEO Christopher J. Abate (Credit: iStock)

Wall Street wants your rent.

Redwood Trust, one of Wall Street’s largest securitizers of mortgage bonds, is now packaging bonds backed by rent payments. The move marks a broader interest by Wall Street in rental properties amid of rise of home purchased by institutional landlords, rather than families or individual owners.

Doubling down on this bet, in October, Redwood paid $490 million to purchase CoreVest American Finance LLC, which is a lender to landlords. And the company recently sold a $376 million bond package backed by rent payments.

With its acquisitions, Redwood could originate more than $3 billion of loans to landlords and house flippers in 2020, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Investors are increasingly making up a larger part of the homeownership market. Purchases by such investors looking to flip or act as landlords accounted for more than 11 percent of U.S. home sales in 2018, their highest share on record, according to the Journal.

The first to try to take advantage of this trend was in 2013 when Blackstone Group’s Invitation Homes Inc. and American Homes 4 Rent, had begun to sell bonds backed by rent payments for thousands of homes they bought and leased out. [WSJ] — Keith Larsen

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Newable Flexible Workspace’s Brett Million and Serendipity Labs CEO John Arenas

A flexible office space firm is entering the London co-working market, at a time when others are shuttering operations there.

Serendipity Labs, a company that provides on-demand office space in primary and secondary markets, said Friday that it has entered an agreement to license 25 locations in the U.K., including 12 in London.

The New York-based firm, which uses franchise and management partnership agreements with its landlords, will partner with U.K.-based firm Newable Flexible Workspace, a subsidiary of consulting firm Newable Limited.

“Through licensing arrangements, it’s a way for us to grow in an asset-light brand approach to this industry,” said John Arenas, a former executive at Regus, who launched Serendipity Labs in 2011.

London is considered among the most crowded co-working markets in the world, with close to a dozen major companies operating in the city, and a multitude of smaller firms. Nearly 5 percent of the city’s office stock is co-working, according to a Cushman & Wakefield report from April. The competitive landscape has prompted some firms to reevaluate their strategy there.

WeWork, the world’s largest coworking firm, is currently assessing whether to proceed on 28 new leases in the city, Bloomberg reported, as it plans massive job cuts in the city. Recently, San Francisco-based RocketSpace, told employees it would close its 1,500 seat London location by the end of the year.

“I dont think its a harbinger of things to come,” Arenas said of RocketSpace’s closure. “It really was an accelerator helping businesses.”

Serendipity Labs expansion to the U.K. overshadows the challenges facing other office space firms in the U.S. Aside from WeWork, which in recent months has taken drastic steps to salvage its business, smaller firms have also encountered disruptions.

Last month, New York-based Corporate Suites was briefly evicted from a Manhattan office building due to a payment dispute. And on Thursday, The Real Deal reported that Montreal-based firm Breather had laid off 17 percent of its staff.

In the meantime, Arenas said his firm is discussing similar licensing agreements with operators in Australia and Canada. He previously has said he plans to open as many as 300 locations.

Last year, Serendipity Labs entered an agreement with China’s largest co-working firm, UCommune, to serve as its U.S. partner, and open a location at 28 Liberty Street in Manhattan. In the U.S., Serendipity Labs currently has 37 locations in 29 cities.

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