Clockwise from top left: 3995 North Miami Ave., 5 Northeast 39th St., 1 Northeast 40th St. through 35 Northeast 40th St. (Credit: Google Maps, iStock)

RedSky Capital’s entire Miami Design District portfolio, encompassing 14 buildings with 125,000 square feet of space, is hitting the market as the troubled Brooklyn-based development group seeks to sell much of its real estate.

Cushman & Wakefield is listing the 2.5-acre site as a potential redevelopment opportunity for a mixed-use project totaling over 628,000 square feet. The property is in a designated Opportunity Zone, which allows developers and investors the ability to gain significant tax breaks for investing in certain areas.

RedSky secured $220 million in debt from Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance to acquire the assemblage, which mostly consists of mid-century retail buildings.

The listing is unpriced, but is “being offered to the market by a lender at projected pricing that is roughly one-half the original developer’s basis in the parcels,” according to Cushman & Wakefield’s offering memorandum.

Brooklyn-based RedSky and London Stock Exchange-listed partner JZ Capital Partners paid roughly $236 million to purchase the properties through separate deals with Thor Equities and Tishman Corp. between 2015 and 2016. That means the listing price may be about $118 million.

When Redsky and JZ Capital Partners entered the Miami market, they scooped up retail properties in the Miami Design District at top dollar, in one deal paying more than $3,132 per square foot. The group was seeking to capitalize on the success of the Design District, which is largely owned by Dacra’s Craig Robins, his partner, LVMH affiliate L Catterton Real Estate, which each own 38.75 percent of the district; and Brookfield Property Partners, which owns another 22.5 percent. The area features high-end boutiques such as Hermès, Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton, Cartier and Gucci.

Redsky and JZ were planning to develop a mixed-use project with parking, retail and office space with Miami architect Chad Oppenheim.

The listed properties include:.

• 1 Northeast 40th Street – 19,436 square feet
• 35 Northeast 40th Street – 17,391 square feet
• 3995 North Miami Avenue – 32,733 square feet
• 10 Northeast 40th Street – 5,000 square feet
• 28 Northeast 40th Street – 723 square feet
• 40 Northeast 40th Street – 4,649 square feet
• 50 Northeast 40th Street – 7,517 square feet
• 56 Northeast 40th Street – 4,174 square feet
• 15 Northeast 39th Street & 3925 North Miami Avenue – 10,593 square feet
• 19 & 21 Northeast 39th Street – 8,310 square feet
• 45 Northeast 39th Street – 8,533 square feet
• 53 & 55 Northeast 39th Street – 1,702 square feet
• 75 Northeast 39th Street – 3,103 square feet
• 81 Northeast 39th Street – 3,103 square feet

RedSky Capital, formed in 2006, is led by Ben Bernstein and Ben Stokes. The firm brought the first Apple store to Brooklyn and was one of the most aggressive investors in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg retail real estate this cycle.

RedSky has fallen on hard times and has been liquidating its portfolio in recent months, after JZ Capital raised concerns about its valuation in October. JZ Capital said at that time that it could write off as much as a third of the valuation of its $443 million share of RedSky’s portfolio.

RedSky recently defaulted on a $154.6 million loan for a Brooklyn development site from its lender Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance. The lender said RedSky stopped paying the mortgage in March.

RedSky also recently listed a full block development site on the Greenpoint waterfront at 1 Java Street in Brooklyn for $165 million.

Since 2013, the company has purchased more than $500 million of real estate in the Miami Design District, Wynwood and West Palm Beach, according to its website.

In South Florida, RedSky and JZ Capital Partners own the Esperanté Corporate Center in downtown West Palm Beach. The group bought the property in 2016 from Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers and Crocker Partners for $125.75 million.

RedSky also owns Cube Wynwyd, an eight-story office building at 222 Northwest 24th Street in Wynwood.

The post Troubled RedSky lists Miami Design District portfolio appeared first on The Real Deal Miami.

From left: Intercontinental Miami, Hotel 166 in Chicago and the Ritz-Carlton in New York (Credit: IC Miami Hotel, Google Maps and The Ritz-Carlton)

The coronavirus pandemic continued to batter the U.S. hotel market in the first week of April.

The national hotel occupancy rate plunged to 21.6 percent for the week ending April 4, a nearly 69 percent drop from the same time last year, according to data from hotel research firm STR. The rate for the last week of March was 22.6 percent.

For the top 25 markets in the U.S., the drop was more staggering: Occupancy fell to 19.4 percent, down about 75 percent from 2019. Of those top markets, Hawaii’s Oahu Island recorded the largest year-over-year occupancy drop of about 91 percent to the only single-digit occupancy level of just 7 percent.

In New York City, the hotel occupancy rate came in at 18.3 percent, which is about 79 percent lower than the same time last year, according to STR. That occupancy figure is slightly higher than the nearly 15 percent reported for the last week of March.

The Miami/Hialeah market recorded its worst week yet during the pandemic, with a 18.5 percent occupancy rate. That is down about 77 percent year over year. Chicago and Los Angeles notched slight increases during the first week of April from the week before, but the occupancy rates were still down significantly year over year.

Data worsened from last week, but there are patterns emerging. Economy hotels had the highest occupancy rates, and interstate and suburban properties also had top rates among location types, said Jan Freitag, STR’s senior vice president of lodging insights.

“This shows there are still pockets of demand while more than 75 percent of the rooms around the country are empty,” Freitag added.

With the global economy reeling and cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami under stay-at-home orders, hotels have been emptying out or shuttering altogether. Many of them had already been struggling with debt payments before the virus hit, and recently have been forced to furlough and lay off thousands of staffers. Some of the hotels that are open have been adding to their occupancy by working with municipalities to house Covid-19 patients or people who have been exposed to the virus.

Other key metrics for the industry also were troubled.

The national average daily rate for the first week of April came in at $76.51, down about 42 percent from last year. And revenue per available room dropped about 82 percent year over year to $16.5, per STR.

The luxury Ritz-Carlton, at 50 Central Park South, for instance, reported Wednesday that it intends to temporarily let over 300 employees go because of Covid-19, according to a state filing. The Fairfield Inn at 100 Greenwich Street near the World Trade Center said the same, though the hotel did not disclose how many employees will or have already lost their jobs. On Tuesday, the Hudson Hotel, at 358 West 58th Street, said it was temporarily laying off 212 workers.

Write to Mary Diduch at md@therealdeal.com

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Homeowners are halting mortgage payments as forbearance rates surge. (Credit: iStock)

As tenants struggle to pay rent, homeowners are struggling to make mortgage payments.

The rates of mortgages in forbearance surged April 1 to 2.66 percent from 0.25 percent at the start of March, according to Bloomberg. It comes as Moody’s Analytics’ chief economist expects that up to 30 percent of homeowners may stop making mortgage payments.

The federal government has instructed lenders handling mortgages backed by the government to give borrowers up to six months grace periods, and loan servicers have been inundated with calls from borrowers. Some states are taking similar measures.

In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order that required state-regulated banks to communicate to borrowers how to receive 90 days of forbearance on mortgage payments. He also specified that requests should be processed within 10 days.

But loan servicers are still on the hook to pay bondholders, which is leading to a liquidity crunch for independent mortgage companies that can’t count on the government to backstop losses like banks can.

Fitch Ratings warned that nonbank lenders could be especially vulnerable if forbearance becomes prevalent and put seven nonbank lenders on negative-rating watch at the end of March.

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, 3.45 percent of loans held by nonbank lenders have gone into forbearance. According to the Wall Street Journal, about 60 percent of U.S. home mortgages are originated by nonbank lenders. [Bloomberg] — Erin Hudson

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1717 Sabal Palm Drive, Steve Calkins (Credit: Premier Estate Properties/Youtube, and LinkedIn)

A former general counsel at Office Depot sold a home in Boca Raton’s Royal Palm Yacht & Country Club for $5.7 million.

Steve Calkins and his wife Christeena Calkins sold the 6,826-square-foot home at 1717 Sabal Palm Drive for $835 per square foot, records show. Robert MacLaren, acting as trustee of the 1717 Sabal Palm Residence Family Trust, purchased the home.

Calkins was general counsel of Boca Raton-based Office Depot between 2017 and 2019. He was previously responsible for Office Depot’s contract sales business and Canadian operations, according to a press release. He is now chief legal officer with Ashley Furniture Industries.

The home has five bedrooms and eight bathrooms. The property has a loggia and a saltwater pool, according to a listing on Realtor.com.

The house was built in 2019. The property last sold for $1.6 million in 2017, records show.

Boca Raton has recently seen a slew of high-profile sales. In October, Robert Sheetz, the founder of the Sheetz convenience store and gas station chain, sold a waterfront estate at 133 West Coconut Palm Road in the Royal Palm Yacht & Country Club for $11.45 million.

In September, a group of executives tied to a West Palm Beach transportation company bought a 9,203-square-foot house at 300 East Key Palm Road in Boca Raton’s Royal Palm Yacht & Country Club for $12.1 million.

The post Former Office Depot exec sells Boca Raton home for $6M appeared first on The Real Deal Miami.

When the coronavirus crisis subside, offices could do away with hot-desking (Credit: iStock)

Most people around the globe have wondered what long-term impacts the coronavirus pandemic could have on their jobs, the economy, and culture.

The verdict is very much out on all those fronts, but some in the real estate industry are already planning for a big change with regard to workplace design and practices, according to the New York Times. On the bright side, that might mean larger and more permanent workspaces for employees.

Office workers will likely see hand sanitizer stations at the front door and possibly limits on the number of people allowed in elevators and small spaces, which could also be upgraded with hands-free access technology.

Companies may phase in employees to offices to avoid packing an office all at once and large in-person meetings could go on hold. RXR Realty’s Scott Rechler said employees may work in the office in alternating groups.

“There could be A teams and B teams working different days,” he told the Times.

In the long term, office layouts could be changed to encourage distancing between colleagues — a reversal of the shrinking of workstations that’s occurred over the last decade or so.

Hot-desking, the practice in which employees aren’t assigned a permanent workspace and simply find a place to work when they arrive at the office, could go out of vogue in the near term to reduce the transfer of germs between employees.

The pandemic could also affect how buildings themselves are designed. Developers may also opt for smoother, more sanitary finishing materials, such as anti-microbial materials traditionally used in hospitals. [NYT] – Dennis Lynch

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“Read my lips: You are not going to see distress in multifamily,” he said during a TRD Talks Live panel discussion on Tuesday.

“Everybody listening who thinks ‘this is my opportunity to sharpen my claws. I’m a hedge fund, and I’m going to find a lot of great deals in New York,’ let me disabuse you of this opportunity,” he said. “In the short, foreseeable future, you are not going to see distress in multifamily.”

Lichtenstein, along with Slate Property Group’s David Schwartz and MetroLoft’s Nathan Berman discussed how the multifamily market is faring during the coronavirus crisis. When the panel’s moderator, reporter Georgia Kromrei, asked if some firms will see distressed multifamily as an exciting opportunity, the speakers agreed that for now, most properties are stable. Lichtenstein said that of all “the food groups,” multifamily is the best positioned, given that tenants are, for the most part, continuing to pay rent, and banks are still working with owners — though that could change if the crisis stretches beyond six to nine months.

The exceptions, of course, are owners who were overleveraged before the pandemic hit, Schwartz said. He noted that he’s seen interest from parties who haven’t invested in New York since 2014.

“There are going to be a lot of people coming from the sidelines looking for opportunities,” Schwartz said.

Lichtenstein added that multifamily properties on the Israeli bond market are being “irrationally traded down.”

“If you want to pick up some cheap New York City multifamilies, buy the bonds,” he said.

The multifamily sector, though, is the target of recent statewide policies aimed at delivering relief to struggling renters. Landlords are barred from evicting tenants for non-payment of rent through mid-June. State legislators are seeking to extend that timeline for another six months. State Sen. Michael Gianaris has also proposed a bill seeking to suspend rent and mortgage payments for 90 days.

Though the industry has increasingly been at odds with Albany, Schwartz said the crisis could provide an opportunity to find common ground.

“I think that we’re going to see a huge need coming out of this for affordable housing,” Schwartz said. “Hopefully that’s an arena in which the advocates and the developers and the elected officials can work together.”

Lichtenstein said that perhaps tenants who negotiate with their landlords over their inability to pay full rent because they lost their job will come out of the crisis thinking landlords are “real human beings.”

“Whenever you demonize an entire class of people, bad things happen,” he said. “You know, when you demonize a race, a sexual preference, those aren’t good things, and it’s not the American way. This is an opportunity for people to say, ‘hey, landlords acted in a very nice way. They are compassionate. They worked with people. They did as much as they can,’” he said. “And maybe they’ll discover that landlords really are human beings like everybody else.”

Berman said he’s less optimistic.

“I doubt very much that anytime soon, landlords will get any sympathy from anybody,” he said. “In the case of affordable housing and lower-income housing, we’re taking a lion’s share of people’s income. Even though we have expenses, we have our mortgages, we have businesses to run. People view that as not a positive thing. The New York legislature unfortunately is of that mindset, and I don’t know that coronavirus isn’t going to exacerbate that problem.”

Write to Kathryn Brenzel at kathryn@therealdeal.com

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5775 Collins Avenue and 1775 James Avenue

The city of Miami Beach issued stop work orders at 57 Ocean and Hotel 18’s construction sites, saying they failed to comply with safety regulations during the Covid-19 emergency period.

Miami Beach Associates LLC was issued the stop work order for the 57 Ocean project at 5775 Collins Avenue, after an inspection on Monday. Multiplan Real Asset Management, owned by Brazilian billionaire José Isaac Peres, is developing the 18-story, 71-unit condo building on the site.

The city also ordered that construction stop at 1775 James Avenue, where Blue Road is planning Hotel 18, an expansion of the Redbury Hotel. Both projects were given time to secure their sites and leave them in safe conditions, and both have stopped construction, according to a spokesperson for the city of Miami Beach.

Construction has been allowed to go on throughout much of South Florida during the pandemic, with some cities such as Bal Harbour shutting down all construction at occupied properties. One Miami developer, Sergio Pino, shut down construction of his site after two workers tested positive for the virus, and then reopened the site the following week with a reduced workforce.

In Miami Beach, all construction is considered an essential activity and is allowed to go on.

Blue Road closed on an $18 million loan for the Redbury expansion and renovation last year. M&C Contractors is handling construction of the hotel project.

Moss & Associates is the general contractor for 57 Ocean.

Marcelo Kingston, managing director of Multiplan, said in a statement that the developer was notified on Wednesday that construction would be suspended for two weeks. Kingston added that the project is two months ahead of schedule and still plans to open next fall.

“The health and well-being of our surrounding neighbors, contractors, and workers remains our top priority, and [we] hope this temporary interruption will contribute to the social distancing efforts our larger community has in place,” he said in the statement.

Multiplan and its contractors are working on securing their site. Construction had reached the 10th floor of the 18-story building, Kingston said.

The beachfront property was previously home to the Marlborough House condo building, which unexpectedly collapsed during a planned conventional demolition in 2018, killing a demolition project manager.

The post Miami Beach orders 57 Ocean and Hotel 18 construction sites to shut down appeared first on The Real Deal Miami.

Barry Gosin, Sandeep Mathrani and Christian Ulbrich

WeWork has hired JLL and Newmark Knight Frank to help it negotiate rent relief or convert lease deals into profit-sharing agreements.

The co-working firm has stopped paying rent at some of its locations in the U.S. for April as it aims to renegotiate its leases, according to the Wall Street Journal. Multiple other businesses in the country, including Equinox, have also not been paying their April rent.

WeWork had been aiming to lower rent costs and shift its leases to management agreements well before the coronavirus pandemic. Its massive real estate expenses threatened to exhaust its cash following its botched initial public offering attempt last fall, but it was bailed out by its principal investor, SoftBank.

The office-sharing company has controversially kept its U.S. locations open during the pandemic, but most have emptied out as tenants practice social distancing and adhere to government stay-home orders. WeWork is also suing SoftBank over allegations that it wrongfully backed out of an agreement to buy $3 billion of WeWork shares.

Some of the firm’s landlords said WeWork has paid them, while others still have not received the rent.

A spokesperson for WeWork told the Journal in a statement that the firm does not have a companywide policy on rent payments. Instead it is “individually reaching out to our more than 600 global landlord partners to work in good faith towards finding asset-specific solutions that benefit all parties involved.” [WSJ] — Eddie Small

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eXp Realty CEO Jason Gesing

eXp Realty’s remote-work model may have spared it some of the transition pains encountered by traditional brokerages in the age of social distancing, but the virtual brokerage is hardly immune to the other effects of the economic downturn.

The Washington-based firm announced Wednesday it had reduced headcount by about 15 percent across the company, among a swathe of cost-cutting measures it was taking in response to the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Staff departures aren’t easy, but we are doing this with the utmost respect for each and every person,” eXp Realty CEO Jason Gesing said in a statement. “We are grateful for the contributions of those who are leaving us. However, we are confident about our business model and these changes are the right thing to do to put eXp on a stronger path to grow when business — and life — returns to normal.”

The company also released preliminary business highlights from the first quarter, once again highlighting the dramatic growth trajectory eXp has been on since going public last May. Agent and broker headcount was up 59 percent year-over-year at 28,449, while residential transaction volume nearly doubled to $11.2 billion.

In other cost cutting moves, eXp has eliminated business travel for staff, while the firm’s executives and board members have taken significant salary and compensation cuts. Additionally, some staff have been transferred from eXp Realty to work on immersive technology platform VirBELA, which is also owned by eXp Realty’s parent company, eXp World Holdings.

eXp says that VirBELA, which allows companies — including eXp Realty itself — to create Sim City-style virtual worlds for employees to work in, has seen increased interest due to the coronavirus crisis.

In his statement, Gesing called the coronavirus outbreak a global health crisis “unlike anything we’ve ever seen in our lifetimes, and our hearts go out to everyone impacted around the world, especially our agents, staff, partners and their families. From day one, we have run a lean and agile business so that eXp would be sustainable for the future.”

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Norman Braman, Jorge Perez and Magic City Jai Alai (Credit: Google Maps, Braman by Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images; jai alai player via Wikimedia Commons)

Billionaire auto dealer Norman Braman and developer Jorge Perez have teamed up with two Miami homeowner groups to file a lawsuit aimed at short-circuiting a settlement agreement between the city of Miami and the owner of Magic City Casino.

It’s their latest effort to derail plans for a jai alai fronton on land in Miami’s Edgewater neighborhood owned by Russell Galbut’s Crescent Heights.

Through entities they control, Braman and Perez, along with the Brickell Homeowners Association and the Morningside Civic Association, sued the city of Miami and its city manager Art Noriega in Miami-Dade Circuit Court last month. The goal is to overturn a zoning administrator’s eight-year-old interpretation of city code that slot machines, parimutuels and other gambling uses are entertainment uses.

The lawsuit alleges the 2012 opinion by then-zoning administrator Barnaby Min was key to West Flagler Associates, Magic City Casino’s owner, obtaining subsequent state approval to open a jai alai facility and a card room at 3030 Biscayne Boulevard. Braman and Perez are staunch opponents of casino developments in the city.

The plaintiffs have also filed a motion to intervene in a federal lawsuit West Flagler Associates has pending against the city, which led to the proposed settlement that was approved by the Miami City Commission on Feb. 13. Mayor Francis Suarez vetoed the commission’s decision, but City Attorney Victoria Mendez issued an opinion that the veto was invalid.

The “2012 letter [was] issued in secret and obtained without any notice or process,” Braman said in an April 2 statement. “If the city of Miami is going to allow gambling — and I’ve long said it should not — then notice must be given to Miami’s residents so that they can have a meaningful say and hold elected officials responsible.”

Eugene Stearns, the attorney for Braman and the other plaintiffs, said Min did not go through the appropriate process in issuing his 2012 opinion. “He determined that gambling can take place anywhere in Miami,” Stearns said. “It requires a development review process that didn’t occur here.”

Mendez would not comment on the specific allegations.“The City Commission’s decision will be defended in court,” she said via email.

Joseph DeMaria, the attorney for West Flagler Associates, said Braman, Perez and the associations are engaging in legal tactics that could end up costing Miami taxpayers $1 million in legal fees, while also losing the fight to stop the jai alai fronton.

If the settlement falls apart, West Flagler will win the federal case at trial, DeMaria said. “They are using West Flager as a bogeyman to make it a bigger issue than it really is,” he said. “We gave the city a great settlement.”

Under the agreement, West Flagler Associates has agreed it will not place slot machines at the jai alai fronton, and the company still has to come back for city commission approval to add the card room, DeMaria said. If West Flagler wins in court, the company will be able to add slot machines without city approval.

The casino operator has asserted that the 2012 letter gave West Flagler Associates vested rights that exempted it from a city zoning ordinance requiring more public hearings for the jai alai fronton.

According to Braman’s lawsuit, Min allegedly “concealed the 2012 gambling letter, disregarded the zoning code provisions that plainly require notice to other city officials, neighborhood associations, and the public, and thus denied Miami’s citizens any meaningful right to public comment or appeal.”

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Simon Ziff (Photo by Emily Assiran)

Simon Ziff has been at the helm of Ackman-Ziff Real Estate Group since 1995. As one of the most prominent boutique real estate debt and equity brokerages in the country, the company closed more than $7 billion in deals last year and about $85 billion in total since Ziff became president. The advisory firm dates back to 1926, when Herman and Bert Ackman initially founded it as Ackman Brothers. It has since worked on financing deals ranging from the Milford Plaza Hotel in New York (now known as the Row NYC Hotel) to the Parkmerced project in San Francisco, the brokerage’s largest to date, totaling $1.75 billion in debt and preferred equity. Ackman-Ziff now employs 50 people and has offices in New York, Miami, Los Angeles and Boston. The company is active in other cities, including Philadelphia, Denver and Washington, D.C., where Ziff said he will likely open an additional office in the future. Ziff grew up in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, attended Penn State University and remains a big fan of the school’s wrestling team. He earned his master’s degree in real estate from NYU and got his first job in the business after responding to a newspaper ad from Larry Ackman seeking someone to come join his firm in the late 1980s. Ziff has remained with the company ever since. He took over as president after deciding to stay on board rather than join Ackman’s partner and cousin Andy Singer when they parted ways in the mid-1990s. And Ziff continued to lead the brokerage after Ackman left in 2009 to join his son’s hedge fund. In a wide-ranging interview that The Real Deal conducted by video in a sign of the times, Ziff touched on topics ranging from the rapidly spreading coronavirus pandemic to turning down acquisition offers for Ackman-Ziff.

DOB: September 26, 1964
Lives in: Armonk, New York
Hometown: Philipsburg, Pennsylvania
Family: Married with three children

What is your full name? Simon Ziff. I have no middle name. I got gypped.

What was it like growing up in Philipsburg? I liked my childhood. I played baseball, rode bikes around town, walked to friends’ houses. It was a very simple, peaceful childhood, so much so that when I go to sleep at night, I [sometimes] go to sleep thinking about my hometown.

What were you like as a kid? I was not rambunctious. I was meticulous with hobbies. One of my biggest was electric football — little plastic players with little green bases that you could adjust to set up plays. There were actually electric football leagues.

What did your parents do when you were growing up? They had a men’s clothing store bordering the Penn State campus on College Avenue. They both worked there together.

Were you a good student? Is a 1.8 GPA your first semester of college good?

It’s all relative. Well, it may have been in the top 25 percent of my pledge class. I got better as a student as the years went on. Academics weren’t too important in Philipsburg.

What was your first job? My grandfather was a suit manufacturer. My first job was making boxes in his factory. You fold the cardboard, and you tape them, and then you give them to the next guy.

You live now in Armonk, New York, in Westchester County. Would you ever consider moving to the city? I hope to move to the city part-time when my son graduates from high school. My goal is to see live music at different places 20 to 25 times a month.

Do you have any other homes? We don’t.

How concerned are you about the ongoing coronavirus pandemic? We’re first making sure our people are safe and functioning. We’re also trying to close the deals that we have in house, whatever it takes. We have to make sure our borrowers understand that things can get worse, and if the deal on the table is attractive, they should close it. We’ll continue to be really selective on development, as I’m certain many of the equity sources will turn their attention to distressed opportunities.

For us, this could be an opportunity to try making some strategic partnerships and hires. I’ve already heard from other firms that want to join forces. It’s nice to have friendships in the business at times like these.

What’s your biggest worry about the pandemic? Aside from health issues, it’s that the capital markets shut down. Right now, we still have liquidity. If liquidity goes away, we’re all dead.

Are you worried about a credit crunch at all? We’re always worried about that. I don’t anticipate it, but we have to be prepared for it.

What would a credit crunch mean for Ackman-Ziff? We would ramp up our restructuring business, which we’re already looking into. The good news is our clients have become more and more the entrepreneurial funds, and they’re going to be really active if there’s a credit crunch.

What did you learn going through the 2008 financial crisis? Do any of those lessons apply to the one it looks like we’re heading for now? Sure. No. 1, we kept pretty significant reserves in the firm in 2008, which were incredibly useful. For this downturn, we’ve doubled those reserves. We were also very entrepreneurial in 2008, and we formed some strategic partnerships in loan sales, for example, that resulted in meaningful income for the firm. We’re already selling loans now and getting our distressed advisory personnel in place.

How did you first get involved in the real estate business? I got into it in 1989 when I answered a New York Times ad to join Larry Ackman at the predecessor firm Ackman Brothers & Singer. Ackman Brothers was a premier firm in the ‘80s and probably long before that.

Did you consider any other careers? If you look at my high school yearbook, my ambition was to go to Silicon Valley and win a golf championship. But I burned out at golf when I was 17. I also thought technology would be a good field for me, but I didn’t pursue it.

Larry Ackman and Andy Singer split in 1994. Why did you decide to stick with Larry instead of go with Andy? My overall comfort level was greater with Larry at the time. His son Bill was also establishing himself in private equity, and those relationships would ultimately become very important to Ackman-Ziff as we moved more from a local developer clientele to a fund clientele.

What are some of the most important lessons you learned from Larry? I tried to be a lot more inclusive in decision-making with the team than I had experienced at the old firm. I truly view everybody in the firm as partners.

Why did Larry decide to leave Ackman-Ziff? I think he realized that he wasn’t enjoying advisory work as much, and he had an opportunity to go work every day with his son, which is pretty exciting.

You told us back in 2014 that you’ve turned down offers from CBRE and Cushman to buy Ackman-Ziff. Did those talks get to the point where they gave you a price tag? No. We got the price tag on a few acquisition offers, and on others, we didn’t get that far. There have been many conversations over the years. It’s never really been about price as much as about what life would be like after the acquisition.

Is that why you’ve turned down all the offers you’ve received so far? Yeah, pretty much. In one case, a major brokerage firm told us that their coverage model is “the Code of the West.” Anybody can call anybody at any time. That wasn’t going to work for us. It would be very challenging to keep a good cultural environment and team orientation with “the Code of the West” as the operative for finding new business. I never want to jeopardize the culture of the firm.

Have you received more recent offers to buy Ackman-Ziff? Sure. We had one in 2019 that we didn’t move forward on. It was a major national public company.

Would you ever consider selling the firm? We would absolutely consider selling or joint-venturing with a firm with a lot of talented people and a like-minded culture.

How have Ackman-Ziff’s expansions into the West Coast and Florida been going? They’ve been very complementary to our business. Clients in New York are doing business elsewhere, and we can service them a little better by having key colleagues in other areas. Last year, we did more than 35 percent of our volume on the West Coast.

Do you feel like New York has become a harder place to do real estate deals in recent years? I think there’s been a price discovery issue for a while. I wouldn’t say it’s harder to do deals in New York. There are some investors outside of New York that have paused because of the political landscape, but there are still plenty of investors interested in New York.

Do you think any of the criticism the real estate industry has been facing recently is fair? I don’t have a strong view there. I haven’t thought it through.

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made in your career? The mistakes are on the hiring side. I have very few regrets, but there’s a breed of real estate broker that cares more about their contracts than their production. We’ve tried to avoid that animal as much as possible, but you can’t 100 percent of the time.

What do you like to do to unwind? I like to meditate. I like to garden and prune my trees. I like to exercise.

Do you still exercise in your suit pants? Yup.

Are you still close with Larry and Bill Ackman these days? I am. They’re two of our bigger clients. I speak to Larry pretty regularly.

Bill has faced criticism over his aggressive investment style at Pershing Square Capital Management. Do you have any thoughts on how he’s run the business? I think he’s doing great right now. The guy is super talented and always figures out a way.

Any thoughts on his Herbalife short? I think he had it right.

What’s the best professional advice you’ve ever received? I don’t remember who told me to play the long game, but that’s the best advice I’ve ever received.

How did you and your wife, Hope, meet? I met her at a dinner party with fellow graduates of the NYU master’s in real estate program. That was 30 years ago.

She’s called you a hillbilly at heart. Any comment on that? She calls me that less often now. I think she says it because I connect so deeply to my childhood, which was out in the country.

You wrote on LinkedIn in 2017 that you had never tried a recreational drug in your life. Is that still the case? It’s still the case. I think that I may one day. It would have to be the right moment.

What was your last big purchase for yourself? I bought a $1,500 leaf mulcher from Home Depot less than a year ago, but it won’t start.

What’s your favorite place to eat in New York? The Red Rooster [in Harlem].

It seems like your “fro” is a big part of your brand these days. Would you ever change your hairstyle? I might try it. It’s unfortunately too much a part of my brand these days. It was zero part of my brand before I grew it out.

Any fears of balding? I have a ceding hairline, not a receding hairline.

What do you want your legacy to be? That I helped the people around me whenever I could, and hopefully those people will check in on my kids when I’m no longer around.

— Edited and condensed for clarity.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this interview identified Ziff’s grandfather as a boot manufacturer. He was a suit manufacturer.

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Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell (Photo by Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images)

The Federal Reserve is injecting an additional $2.3 trillion in loans to bolster a frozen economy, which continues to be on lockdown as the spread of the coronavirus accelerates.

Thursday’s financing announcement came as the U.S. Department of Labor reported that another 6.6 million Americans filed jobless claims last week. That figure was down from the adjusted prior amount of 6.8 million, but the total of Americans who have asked for relief, mostly because of coronavirus-related business shutdowns, has skyrocketed to almost 17 million over the past three weeks.

“Our country’s highest priority must be to address this public health crisis, providing care for the ill and limiting the further spread of the virus,” said Fed Chair Jerome Powell as part of the announcement. “The Fed’s role is to provide as much relief and stability as we can during this period of constrained economic activity, and our actions today will help ensure that the eventual recovery is as vigorous as possible.”

Among the central bank’s steps announced Thursday include boosting liquidity to financial institutions making loans through the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program, designed to keep workers on the payrolls of small companies. The Fed also said it would buy up to $600 billion in loans through the Main Street Lending Program, which will provide four-year loans to companies with up to 10,000 workers or revenues less than $2.5 billion, with principal and interest on those loans deferred up to a year.

The Fed also will increase the flow of credit to households and businesses by supporting up to $850 billion in credit. To do so, the Fed will be expanding the scope of three existing credit facilities, and the central bank is aiming to assist state and local governments that may be experiencing cash-flow issues because of the coronavirus by setting up a credit facility that would provide up to $500 billion in loans.

The coronavirus has taken a huge toll on the U.S. economy, particularly on small and mid-sized businesses in the retail and hospitality sectors, as millions are now out of jobs because of government-mandated closures aimed to curtail the spread of Covid-19. For the first week in April, over 925,000 Californians have filed for jobless claims, down from nearly 1 million the week before. In New York, another nearly 345,000 employees did the same, though that also was down from about 367,000 the week prior, according to the advance state claims reported by the DOL.

The Federal Reserve has already taken a series of historic measures, from buying back mortgage-backed securities to slashing interest rates to almost zero percent, to help prop up the U.S. economy, which has nearly come to a complete standstill.

Some observers have noted that the measures will do little to aid those with commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) loans that aren’t secured by government agencies like Freddie Mac. Experts also have previously said that the Fed’s move could leave out companies in the mall and hotel space.

Write to Mary Diduch at md@therealdeal.com

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David Eyzenberg and a rendering of Towers at Blue Lagoon

Weiss Group of Companies scored $21.3 million in bridge financing to build a mixed-use, multifamily and hotel project at the Blue Lagoon office complex near Miami International Airport.

The financing will replace an existing bridge loan and fund predevelopment costs for the Kobi Karp-designed Towers at Blue Lagoon at 4865 Northwest 7th Street. The development will include up to 829 apartments as well as two hotels, according to a press release from Eyzenberg & Co., a New York-based commercial real estate investment bank.

Weiss Group secured the loan from a Canadian private lender, said David Eyzenberg, president of Eyzenberg & Co., which recently opened an office in Miami. Robert Ginsberg, managing director of Eyzenberg & Co., structured and arranged the fixed-rate loan on behalf of the Weiss Group.

Phase one of the project will include a two-building, 368,000-square-foot, 428-unit multifamily development of studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, according to the release.

Miami-based Weiss Group of Companies, led by Caroline Weiss, has owned the land since the 1970s. In March 2019, Weiss Group secured approval from the Miami commission to raise the development site’s maximum building height from eight to 12 stories.

The hotels will have a total of 294 rooms.

The development will also feature parking, affordable, workforce and market-rate housing, as well as improved roads and pedestrian walkways, according to the release.

Eyzenberg & Co. has been retained to market the site as a long-term ground lease development opportunity. The Blue Lagoon office park is home to large corporations, including Burger King, FedEx and Airbus.

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From left: Donald Trump, Jane Goldman of Solil Management, Jorge Perez of Related Group, Stephen Ross of Related Companies, Jeff Greene, Brian Chesky of Airbnb, Sam Zell of Equity Group Investments, Jeff Sutton of Wharton Properties with Adam Neumann, former WeWork CEO (Illustration by The Real Deal)

More than 2,000 people — and hundreds of U.S. real estate titans — cracked Forbes’ latest list of the world’s billionaires.

But in the last 12 days, 226 people saw their net worth fall below the $1 billion mark amid the global economic meltdown. And while few will shed any tears for them, a total of 267 people who made the list last year didn’t make the cut this year, including former WeWork CEO Adam Neumann.

Some of the wealthiest real estate names on the 2020 list are investors and developers from Hong Kong and China. Of the 10 richest people to make their fortunes in real estate, only two were from outside Hong Kong or China.

Overall, 51 percent of the people who made this year’s billionaires list are worth less in 2020 than they were last year.

The richest real estate tycoon in the U.S. is Irvine Company’s Donald Bren. His $15.5 billion net worth ranks him 63rd. His California company owns over 100 million square feet across the U.S., according to Forbes. While most of that is in California, some includes New York and Chicago.

Singaporean brothers Robert and Philip Ng rounded out the top 10 among real estate billionaires.

Oracle of Omaha Warren Buffett clocked in at No. 4 overall in the world with a net worth of $67.5 billion, though real estate — Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices — is only a piece of his vast empire. And that amount is actually down from the $80.8 billion he was worth on the list a year ago.

He ceded his No. 3 position to luxury goods baron Bernard Arnault. Jeff Bezos retained his rank as the world’s richest man, Bill Gates kept his second spot.

Stephen Ross, Related Companies chairman, had a $7.6 billion net worth, earning him the 185th spot overall.

Notably, the co-founders of Airbnb — now reeling from the worldwide decline in bookings — cracked the top 500. With net worths of $4.1 billion each, Brain Chesky, Nathan Blecharczyk and Joe Gebbia tied for No. 437. Being under 40, they’re also among the youngest billionaires on the list.

Another real estate standout was Jane Goldman. The Solil Management scion — who tied for spot 648 with her three siblings — is the only female billionaire running a real estate firm in the U.S.

President Trump tied for 1,001 on the list with Jay Paul, a Silicon Valley real estate developer. Both of them have a net worth of $2.1 billion. For Trump, that’s down from the $3.1 billion net worth Forbes pegged him at last year. Bloomberg estimated the President’s net worth at $3 billion last summer. According to the Guardian, Trump lost $1 billion over the past month from his Trump Organization-run properties.

Equity Group Investments’ Sam Zell, meanwhile, made the list at 349, with a net worth of $4.8 billion. A good chunk of that is reportedly cash, which is exactly what a self-described “professional opportunist” would want in a time when other investors are selling at steep discounts to raise money.

Neumann, who made the list last year with a net worth of $4.1 billion, lost big, in many ways. The WeWork co-founder and now former CEO is today worth around $750 million, according to Forbes. WeWork’s failed IPO and his resignation as its chief last fall significantly reduced his net worth. As part of the October deal that pushed him out of the company, Neumann had the right to sell nearly $1 billion in stock. Now, WeWork’s chief backer SoftBank, is backing out of its pledge to buy back $3 billion of shares from investors, among them, Neumann.

Speaking of SoftBank, its founder and CEO Masayoshi Son remains one of the world’s richest. Although Son took plenty of heat for his role in the WeWork debacle, he’s still worth $16.6 billion. That’s down from $24 billion last year, but still makes him the world’s 56th richest person.

Other real estate moguls that made the list include Sheldon Solow ($4.2 billion); Jerry Speyer ($4 billion); Jeff Sutton ($3.8 billion); Neil Bluhm ($3.7 billion); Jeff Greene ($3.7 billion); Donald Sterling ($3.6 billion); Ben Ashkenazy ($3.5 billion); Rick Caruso ($3.4 billion); John Catsimatidis ($3.3 billion); Jonathan Gray ($3.2 billion); Charles Cohen ($3.2 billion); Solil Management scions Allan Goldman, Amy Goldman Fowler and Diane Kemper (tied with Jane Goldman at $3.1 billion); Richard LeFrak & family ($2.8 billion); Herb Simon, who co-founded the predecessor firm to Simon Property Group ($2.5 billion); Mortimer Zuckerman ($2.5 billion); David Walentas ($2.3 billion); Jay Paul ($2.1 billion); and Related Group of Florida’s “condo king” Jorge Perez ($1.9 billion).

The post These US real estate titans made Forbes’ billionaires list appeared first on The Real Deal Miami.

From left: William Kakon and Ophir Sternberg

Some South Florida landlords are going beyond rent deferments and case-by-case deals, as the majority of tenants struggle to make rent this month and next.

William Kakon, who owns 14 retail and multifamily properties in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, is forgiving rent for his commercial and residential tenants in April and May, plus creating a fund for families in need in his communities, he said. He typically collects about $100,000 a month from his 37 tenants, which include 34 residential tenants. And he is giving a little more than $50,000 to the community, for a total of about $250,000.

“I’m trying to do what I can,” Kakon said. “Anybody should do the same if they can.”

Nationwide, only 69 percent of apartment tenants paid rent in the first five days of April — a 12-point drop from the same period last month, according to the National Multifamily Housing Council.

Lionheart Capital’s subsidiary, Out of the Box Ventures LLC, is waiving base rent for its retail portfolio across the country. That’s the equivalent of a 60 percent to 70 percent discount off monthly rent, said Ophir Sternberg, Lionheart’s founder and CEO. The company owns more than 6 million square feet of retail across 30 properties in 17 states.

Tenants have the option of only paying their portion of the common area maintenance charges (CAM) and the property taxes, in April and May, he said.

In South Florida, Out of the Box owns two properties in the Miami Design District: at 4218 Northeast Second Avenue, where Lionheart is based, and at 4300 Northeast Second Avenue.

“We’re fairly fortunate that we have low leverage on the portfolio, in general. That allows us to be more flexible in our rent collections,” Sternberg said. “We are taking a hit. … Essentially we’re sharing the pain with them [our tenants].”

Out of the Box is also offering big box spaces that it owns to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for its Covid-19 response.

The partial rent forgiveness program may be extended beyond May, Sternberg said. Some tenants are looking to renew or extend their leases as a result, he added.

A number of property owners and managers said they were working with their tenants to help them get through April, including providing information on loans and grants available to them, and offering temporary deferments or discounts.

Todd Rosenberg, co-founder and managing principal of Boca Raton-based Pebb Capital, said about 75 percent of its multifamily tenants paid in April. Fewer retail tenants were able to make their April rent payments. He said the company is working with its tenants on a case-by-case basis.

“The longer this continues, the less savings people will have to pay rent,” Rosenberg said. “I think we will presumably see more of a falloff over the next few months in the multi[family] space.”

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The number of loan applications for home purchases fell sharply last week (Credit: iStock)

Home buyers are retreating from the market as effects of the pandemic reverberate across the residential sector.

Loan applications for home purchases fell last week to the lowest levels since 2015, according to Bloomberg, which cited the Mortgage Bankers Association’s purchase index. And the four-week drop in the index was the steepest since 2010, in the aftermath of the Great Recession.

“Mortgage applications fell last week, as economic weakness and the surge in unemployment continue to weigh heavily on the housing market,” Joel Kan, the trade group’s associate vice president of economic and industry forecasting, said in a statement.

“Purchase activity declined again, with the index dropping to its lowest level since 2015 and now down 33 percent compared to a year ago,” he added.

There was a 19 percent drop in refinancing applications, according to the group’s measure. Mortgage applications were down 17.9 percent.

Taken together, figures across different parts of the residential market paint a somber picture. Last month new leases fell to record lows and contract signings for properties above $4 million also tapered.

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s website, the weekly survey used to produce the loan-application index covers 75 percent of all U.S. retail residential mortgage applications. [Bloomberg] — Sylvia Varnham O’Regan

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1515 West 22nd Street, Julian Johnston, Esther Percal (Credit: Google Maps)

The son of Lennar Corp. Executive Chairman Stuart Miller bought a waterfront home on Miami Beach’s Sunset Islands for $6.2 million.

Brad Miller and his wife Jamie bought the 3,022-square-foot home at 1515 West 22nd Street on Sunset Island I for $2,051 per square foot, records show. Jacqueline Lalonde and Krista Kelley sold the property.

Built in 1941, the home sits on a 25,650-square-foot property and could be redeveloped into a 13,000-square-foot home, according to the listing on Realtor.com. It has four bedrooms and five-and-a-half bathrooms and 80 feet of water frontage.

Julian Johnston with the Corcoran Group represented the sellers. Esther Percal with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices EWM Realty International represented the buyers, according to Realtor.com.

The property last sold for $2.3 million in 2010, records show.

Brad and Jamie Miller were married at the Faena Forum in 2017, according to weddingstylemagazine.com. Brad is the grandson of the late Leonard Miller, who co-founded Miami-based Lennar, and turned it into one of the largest homebuilders in the country. According to Lennar’s proxy statement from February 2019, Brad Miller was employed by Lennar as a land acquisition manager.

The gated Sunset Islands are home to a number of high-end homes. In December, South Beach Diet Dr. Arthur Agatston and his wife, Sari Agatston, sold their waterfront Sunset Islands mansion at 1633 North View Drive for $15.5 million.

The Sunset Islands are not far from Miami Beach’s Star Island, where Stuart Miller lives. Miller’s mega mansion at 22 Star Island Drive has been quietly marketed for sale – off market – since last year. The 17,000-square-foot waterfront mansion, with seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, and an additional 6,000-square-foot, two-bedroom guest house, has a whisper price of $65 million. Stuart Miller also owns 4, 5, 6, 11 and 12 Star Island Drive. He paid $33 million for the former estate of ex-South Beach developer Thomas Kramer at 4 and 5 Star Island Drive in June 2018. Earlier this year, his family sold the home of the late Leonard Miller and his wife Sue Miller at 23 Star Island Drive for $25 million.

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Missed loan payments will approach Great Recession highs, a new report finds (Credit: iStock, Getty Images)

Missed loan payments are expected to approach Great Recession levels in the third quarter of 2020, part of the continuing fallout from a U.S. economy that remains virtually frozen.

The hotel and retail sectors are expected to have the highest delinquency rates, according to projections by Fitch Ratings.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, the delinquency rate had been steadily falling, and stood at just 1.31 percent in March. Now it’s expected to reach as high as 8.75 percent by the end of September — approaching its peak of 9.01 percent recorded in July 2011.

Earlier in the month, Fitch found that 2,600 commercial real estate borrowers requested debt relief, with borrowers against hotel and retail assets among the most asking for help.

While defaults are expected to spike in the months to come, Fitch also projects a decline in new loans issued, fewer maturing loans and fewer resolutions by special servicers.

Hotel and retail delinquencies — hit particularly hard by the coronavirus as travelers and shoppers stay home — are expected to increase to 30 percent and 20 percent, respectively. Those numbers would greatly exceed previous highs of 21.3 percent and 7.7 percent. In March, 1.4 percent of hotel loan payments were delinquent and 3.5 percent for retail.

And as retail tenants fall behind on their rent payments, class B and C malls — and outlet malls whose owners have limited ability to access capital to inject additional equity — are expected to default. Those loans maturing this year are also at a higher risk of default because of scarce liquidity for this property in the current environment.

The lucky ones
But loans secured by top tier-regional malls with pricier square footage are expected to fare better, and properties lucky enough to have “essential” retail tenants that can remain open — like supermarkets, pharmacies and banks — will also be less affected.

The multifamily sector is also expected to take a hit, especially student housing, as schools stay closed. Multifamily properties with many tenants who are hourly wage or service employees who interact with the public are also expected to miss loan payments.

But in a panel discussion this week on the multifamily market, Lightstone’s David Lichtenstein told The Real Deal that of all the “the food groups,” multifamily is the best positioned to weather the storm. He noted that tenants are, for the most part, continuing to pay rent and banks are still working with owners. Lichtenstein added that could change if the crisis stretches beyond six to nine months.

Fitch’s delinquency projections don’t include loans in forbearance. Many borrowers are frantically seeking to make arrangements with their lenders, while multifamily borrowers with federally-backed mortgages can receive forbearance from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as part of the federal stimulus package.

At the beginning of April, a Fitch analysis found that 105 multifamily borrowers, representing $810.2 million in mortgage loans, had already put in such requests for assistance.

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Gov. Ron DeSantis (Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Construction firms across South Florida are on edge over threats of a shutdown.

Earlier this week, Miami Beach shut down construction sites for failing to follow social distancing guidelines, issuing stop work orders for two commercial projects. At the same time, the city of Miami issued an emergency order requiring that all construction workers wear masks. Miami-Dade County may follow with a similar requirement, a spokesperson said.

Construction is allowed to continue in Florida, despite the coronavirus pandemic, but different rules for construction in each city and county have led to industry-wide confusion and fear among contractors that they could get shut down without enough warning. On the flip side, residents who live near these projects are concerned for their safety, and worry that workers could spread the virus even more.

Marcelo Tenenbaum, a principal at Blue Road, said regulations surrounding construction are complicated, especially since some jobs require workers to be closer than six feet apart. Blue Road’s hotel redevelopment at 1775 James Avenue in Miami Beach was among the two large projects ordered to suspend construction on Wednesday after failing to comply with CDC guidelines. The other was the condo tower 57 Ocean in Miami Beach.

“How can we comply with the safety rules while working? There are some tasks that require people working closely together,” Tenenbaum said.

Miami developer Sergio Pino shut down his site at 850 LeJeune Road when two workers tested positive for Covid-19, only to reopen the project the following week, saying that he couldn’t be the only developer to shut down “because if we do that the workers will go to other locations, and that defeats the purpose.”

Among contractors’ ongoing concerns are disruptions to the supply chain. They say they may have to find new suppliers since businesses such as marble slab companies are deemed non-essential and have to shut their doors.

“Every day is a new day. Tomorrow they could just shut everything down,” said Alex Wertheim, president of general contractor Spacio Design Build. He’s still working on residential projects, but said most of his commercial projects – including an interior buildout at Aventura Mall – have been shut down.

“If you’re on a job where the client is going to pay you, that’s where you want to be,” he said.

Getting supplies, like cabinets, is also more difficult, because suppliers are having labor issues or because parts are made in China, said Rex Kirby, president of West Palm Beach-based Verdex Construction.

“We just made the decisions, and switched from different companies that are fabricating in the U.S.” Kirby said. “There are so many things that come from China.”

Perla Lichi, who leads an interior design firm Perla Lichi Design, worked on a groundbreaking last weekend of a synagogue in Lauderhill. Lichi said some projects in the design phase are coming to a halt, but others are going forward. “It is slower than it would normally be,” Lichi said. “These are bumps in the road, we are going to jump one by one.”

Perla Lichi, groundbreaking of 770 Moshiach Center synagogue

Meanwhile, contractors are trying to comply with government regulations. Kirby said Verdex ordered 5,000 masks to help keep workers safe. For projects in the west coast of Florida, he said the company is required to take everyone’s temperature before working on the site.

“It’s definitely slowed things down. It’s much better than not being open,” Kirby said. “We have thousands of people working on their jobs. Most of them need money to pay rent.”

Carol Bowen, chief lobbyist for Associated Builders and Contractors of Florida, said the “slow and steady” approach is safer and less costly than if construction were to be shut down entirely. Re-opening sites would put more people at risk, said Bowen, who is in daily communication with local officials, building departments and ABC’s members.

“When you shut down a job site, or quickly bring it back up, it’s a lot of close contact, a lot of close bodies,” Bowen said.

If the rules continue to change and construction is no longer deemed essential in South Florida, the financial impact on the state’s economy would be huge, industry experts say.

“There are so many parties involved in a construction project, beginning with a lender, lawyer, insurance companies, contractors,” said attorney Brian Wolf with Smith Currie. “The ripple effect of shutting down construction on all of those parties would be financially devastating.”

The post South Florida contractors on edge over threats of shutdown appeared first on The Real Deal Miami.

Daniel de la Vega with the previous website and the redesigned version (Credit: iStock)

One Sotheby’s International Realty rolled out a redesigned website this week, as its agents shift their focus to working remotely and virtually.

The Miami-based brokerage said the website was over a year in the making and represents a $500,000-plus investment. Among the new features are a flexible home search – allowing for lifestyle searches – neighborhood guides, an interactive map search, and a rotating showcase of agents on the homepage, said Karina Lopez, vice president of product and technology at One Sotheby’s.

“We’re promoting agents more than we’ve ever done before,” Lopez said. The last redesign was about five years ago, she said.

One Sotheby’s is also incorporating live data on specific condo buildings, as other brokerages and teams have done in the Miami market. The firm is working on adding a live chat feature and a system that will automate targeted ads for specific listings, using data on who is viewing the listings. The new website also connects to the company’s One Vue suite of tools, which includes One Connect, a lead automation and tracking platform.

The launch comes as brokerages shift to closing deals virtually, with agents working from home due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Sotheby’s franchise, led by Mayi de la Vega and her son Daniel de la Vega, has been expanding in South Florida. In November, it acquired the 100-agent Treasure Coast Sotheby’s, active in the Vero Beach and Melbourne markets. And in February, it closed on the 17-agent Duek Realty, a boutique firm that focused on Brazilian buyers.

Earlier this year, One Sotheby’s brought on Isadora Badi as senior vice president of marketing. She was previously Sotheby’s International Realty’s vice president of global marketing.

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