The vacant land near Tamiami and the inside of a Walmart

Vacant land near Tamiami sells for $4 million

A four-acre stretch of vacant land near Tamiami, which was recently sold for $4 million, is likely going to become a Walmart.

The land was sold by a Coral Gables-based company, whose managing member is Noah P. Sherry of Sherry Realty and Development.

The buyer, which brokerage Marcus & Millichap said was the developer of a national retailer, requested a variance from Miami-Dade County for water retention on the land. The variance includes site plans for a 43,101-square-foot Walmart with an attached parking lot.

The lot wraps around the existing Bank of America, which fronts Southwest 147th Avenue and Southwest 26th Street. Ryan T. Shaw of Marcus & Millichap listed the property, while Drew A. Kristol and Kirk D. Olson of the firm brought the buyer.

“The property was on the market for a couple of years prior to Marcus & Millichap obtaining the listing,” Shaw said in a statement. “We generated five offers and ultimately sold the property to a developer of a major retail tenant.”

The Venture Centre office complex in North Miami Beach

North Miami Beach offices trade for $7 million

The Venture Medical Center, a two-building office complex in North Miami Beach, has been picked up by the Faith Investment Properties Realty Group for $7 million.

The buildings, totaling 60,000 square feet, are located a few blocks away from the Jackson North Medical Center at 16853-16855 Northeast Second Avenue.

FIP Realty purchased the complex as an addition to its medical office portfolio, which also include two office complexes on Ives Dairy Road and one off of Northeast 167th Street.

“We feel that the city of North Miami Beach is currently under-appreciated and has lots more to come in the way of development,” FIP broker Roy Faith said in a statement. “The buildings have minimal vacancy and we are already talking to a number of medical groups to lease. The buildings are situated in a great location right off the golden glades interchange, which makes it very accessible for patients and doctors.”

The flower shop on Biscayne Boulevard

Flower shop in MiMo district sells for $2.75 million

Jenny’s Flowers, a local flower shop along Biscayne Boulevard in the MiMo District, has just been sold for $2.75 million.

The property, at 6807 Biscayne Boulevard, was sold along with a 3,950-square-foot parking lot at its rear and a nearby 1,500-square-foot home at 697 Northeast 68th Street.

Flixe Designs bought the property. It is led by Ruben and Gladys Matz.

Ruben Matz joined the Chariff Realty Group in 2012 and owns a multitude of commercial properties along Biscayne Boulevard.

The land where the florist shop sits was last sold for $175,000 in 1980, according to Miami-Dade County property records.

Westlake Commons in Hollywood

An affiliate of Fort Lauderdale-based Stiles sold Publix Super Markets a store-anchored shopping center in Hollywood, according to Broward County records.

A Publix affiliate paid $39 million for the 13.6-acre site at 1700 Sheridan Street. Other tenants of the newly built shopping center include Starbucks, Chipotle, Pollo Tropical, Wells Fargo and a UPS Store.

Dan Coyle of Stiles Realty is the leasing agent for Westlake Commons, according to the property’s listing.

The site, which borders Sheridan Street and North Federal Highway, last sold for $13.5 million in March 2013, according to Broward County property records. It was built in 2014.

Stiles is a real estate development firm with offices in Miami, Fort Myers, Tampa, Orlando and Charlotte, North Carolina. Stiles’ South Florida developments have included The Pointe in Palm Beach Gardens, Biscayne18 in Miami and Coral Landings in Coral Springs and Margate. The company sold a Fort Lauderdale Publix store to the supermarket chain in April for $22.5 million.

In March, Publix announced that it would invest $1.3 billion in new store construction, remodeling, technology and real estate in 2015.

101 Key Biscayne and Peter Zalewski

Unless a new development is suddenly proposed, developers have completed the last new preconstruction condo project for the wealthy island enclave of Key Biscayne during this current South Florida real estate cycle that began in 2011.

Deeds for the newly completed 101 Key Biscayne project — officially known as the 101 Condominium — standing five-stories tall and featuring 11 units began being recorded on May 21, according to Miami-Dade County records.

To date, only one condo unit has been recorded at a price of $1.85 million for an average price of more than $835 per square feet, according to government records.

Despite the lack of deed transactions available for online review with Miami-Dade County as of May 31, the developer — 101 Sunrise LLC with Eric Soulavy — told The Real Deal 10 units have already been sold for prices ranging from $1.7 million to $2.2 million.

The final unsold developer unit will reportedly be marketed at a price of $2.15 million when the project is scheduled to open its doors on June 18.

The completion of the 101 Key Biscayne comes nine months after the only other new condo project on island — the Oceana Key Biscayne with 154 units — was completed in August 2014, according to government records.

Oceana Key Biscayne has sold 148 units at an average of more than $1,380 per square foot for a total price of nearly $580 million as of May 31, according to government records.

Since 2011, developers have completed 28 new condo buildings with nearly 2,700 units east of I-95 in the tri-county South Florida region of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, according to the preconstruction condo projects website CraneSpotters.com. (For disclosure, my firm operates the website.)

An additional 110 new condo buildings with nearly 11,100 units are currently under construction in South Florida, according to the data.

The new condo projects that are under construction or recently completed account for about 32 percent of the nearly 42,500 units announced for South Florida.

In Key Biscayne, demand for condo units appears strong given the limited number of new projects announced this cycle combined with the lack of developable land available on the island.

As a result, about 160 Key Biscayne condo units are currently on the resale market at an average price of $950 per square foot as of May 31, according to data from the Southeast Florida MLXchange.

In the first four months of 2015, buyers acquired 90 Key Biscayne condo units on the resale market at an average price of $678 per square foot, according to the data.

A year earlier in the January through April period of 2014, buyers purchased 75 Key Biscayne condo units at an average price of $660 per square foot, according to the data.

At the current 2015 transaction pace of 23 units monthly, Key Biscayne has less than seven months of condo resale supply available for purchase.

A balanced market is considered to have about six months of supply available for purchase. Less months of supply generally indicates a seller’s market, and more months of inventory suggests a buyer’s market.

The unanswered question going forward is whether any other developers will come forward with new condo projects for Key Biscayne given the apparent buyer demand that exists for units in this island village of less than 12,850 residents.

Peter Zalewski is a real estate columnist for The Real Deal who founded Condo Vultures LLC, a consultancy and publishing company, as well as Condo Vultures Realty LLC and CVR Realty brokerages and the Condo Ratings Agency, an analytics firm. The Condo Ratings Agency operates CraneSpotters.com, a preconstruction condo projects website, in conjunction with the Miami Association of Realtors.

Construction seems like a permanent part of Miami’s cityscape. With so many new buildings going up every year, it’s easy to lose track of what’s being built and what’s been finished.

RentCafe.com, a real estate blog and rental website, dug up 10 photos of Miami’s biggest towers from 2004 and compared them to what they look like today.

Take a look at this interactive slideshow of Miami’s biggest towers before and after they were built. Drag the slider to to view the buildings as they were in 2007 and 2014.

1. JW Marriott Marquis Miami and the EPIC hotel

JW Marriott Marquis Miami, a 41-story hotel building in Miami’s Downtown, opened its 357 rooms in 2010. The JW, and its neighbor Epic across the street, have several amenities built to cater to traveling NBA teams. The Epic Hotel, at 270 Biscayne Boulevard Way, has high ceilings and raised vanities, while the JW, at 255 Biscayne Boulevard Way, has a regulation-sized basketball court.

2. Paramount Bay

The 47-story Paramount Bay, a mixed-use tower with 346 condos at 2066 North Bayshore Drive, was completed in 2011. The project was nearly completed in 2010 when it went into foreclosure over a $216 million loan. It was taken over soon after by lender iStar and ST Residential through a foreclosure suit. The companies put up the rest of the financing needed to complete the project, and after a quick redesign by Lenny Kravitz, the building opened its doors a year later.

3. The Mint

The Mint, a riverfront condo tower with 602 units at 92 Southwest Third Street, was built in 2009. It stretches 56 stories and has more than 800 feet of river frontage.

4. MyBrickell

The 27-story MyBrickell condo tower at 31 Southeast Sixth Street in Miami’s financial district was completed in late 2013. All 192 of its units were sold out by early May in 2014, just two years after construction on the tower began. It is located across the street from the upcoming 11-acre Brickell City Centre development.

5. 1450 Brickell

1450 Brickell, a 35-story office tower with 583,000 square feet of commercial space, was completed in 2010. The building was named “project of the year” in 2012 by the Urban Land Institute District Council for Southeast Florida and the Caribbean.

6. BrickellHouse

The newly completed BrickellHouse, developed by Harvey Hernandez, is a 46-story residential tower with 374 units at 1300 Brickell Bay Drive. The development sold 98 percent of its units within 90 days of opening. Hernandez’s development team was hit with a $15.8 million foreclosure lawsuit in 2013 over the land it was built on, but the suit was eventually settled.

7. Brickell World Plaza

Yet another tower in Brickell, the Brickell World Plaza is a 40-story office building that opened in 2011. The building, at 600 Brickell Avenue, has a LEED Platinum certification.

8. Icon Brickell

Icon Brickell, a three-tower development at 501 Brickell Avenue, built by the Related Group, has 1,793 residential units and was completed in 2008. The roughly $1 billion project was designed by Arquitectonica with interior designs by Philippe Starck.
9. One Brickell Plaza

The 22-story One Brickell Plaza building has both residential units and office space, and was completed in 2009. It is located at 1800 Southwest First Avenue, between downtown Miami, Coconut Grove and Coral Gables.

10. Nine at Mary Brickell Village

The 35-story Nine at Mary Brickell Village complex on the 900 block of Southwest First Avenue, which was finished earlier this year, has 390 condos and was developed by San Antonio-based Lynd Co. The project ran into trouble in 2014 when a social media post said it was struggling to sell units and was converting back to rentals.

Waterway Shoppes in Weston

A Coral Gables-based company picked up a shopping center in Weston for $15.3 million, according to Broward County records.

Insumus Ferroviaros Inferca sold the nearly 5-acre site at 2210-2281 Weston Road to Waterway Ventures.

Tenants of Waterway Shoppes include International Finance Bank, Mallardi’s Tuscan Grill and Offerdahl’s Cafe Grill. The property last sold in November 2013 for an undisclosed amount, according to Broward County property records. It was built in 1999.

The buyer is tied to Fondo Atlas, an LLC that lists Jose Torbay and Dylan Fonseca as registered agents. Torbay was also listed as part of new ownership of a Coral Springs shopping center that sold for $27 million in February.

Principal Global Investors granted the buyer a $10.4 million mortgage, records show.

The seller shares the same name as a Venezuelan concrete manufacturer.

Home prices across the U.S.

Home prices increased year-over-year: CoreLogic

Home prices in Miami-Dade, including distressed sales, increased by 9.5 percent in April 2015 compared to April 2014. Excluding distressed sales, year-over-year prices increased by 8.5 percent in April 2015 compared to April 2014.

Prices increased by 4.5 percent from April to March of this year, including distressed sales.

Florida was among the top five states with the highest home price appreciation at 9 percent, also including distressed sales.

Shift toward landlord-controlled office market in Fort Lauderdale’s CBD: JLL

Rents in Fort Lauderdale’s Central Business District are up to $34.07 per square foot, a 5.5 percent increase year-over-year, according to JLL’s first quarter office insight study. Total vacancy in the CBD’s 4.7-million-square-foot office market is at 14 percent. Low vacancy rates signal a shift toward a landlord-controlled office market, the report shows.

Millennials are buying less: MarketWatch

Thirty-eight percent of millennials between the ages of 25 and 34 owned homes in 2012, compared to 52 percent of young adults between the ages of 25 and 34 in 1980. Concerns for millennials living in the South include a lack of understanding about the home-buying process and low credit scores.

The Apple Store at 767 Fifth Avenue

From the New York website: If you own a piece of Apple tech there’s a good chance you’ve visited one of their retail locations.

Every detail of each Apple store has been designed and planned out to influence the customer into spending more money as they shop and browse. Here’s how it works.

Layouts courtesy of ifoapplestore.com.

Produced by Justin Gmoser.

Southern Mills Business Park

A Pennsylvania-based real estate investment firm obtained a $17.3 million loan for its Royal Palm Beach distribution warehouse, according to Palm Beach County records.

Bank of America granted Exeter 700 103rd LLC, an affiliate of Exeter Property Group, the mortgage for the 152,387-square-foot Southern Mills Business Park at 700 103rd Avenue. Exeter paid $16.15 million for the property in December, according to property records. 

The building, divided into a 139,298-square-foot distribution warehouse, a smaller 2,694-square-foot warehouse, a 1,050-square-foot office and a 9,345-square-foot office, was built in 2008.

The investment firm has more South Florida purchases in the works, principal Ralph Kittrell told The Real Deal in January.

Exeter is based in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, and specializes in the acquisition, development, leasing, and management of industrial and related business park properties across the United States and Europe, according to its website.

Lyle Chariff and Mauricio Zapata and 170 Northeast 38th Street

A Design District property across the street from the Palm Court Garage has traded hands for $6.9 million — up nearly 3.5 times in less than three years, The Real Deal has learned.

38th Street DD LLC, a Delaware partnership that includes developer Avra Jain and Miami-based investment firm 13th Floor Investments, sold the 3,224-square-foot building at 170 Northeast 38th Street, Lyle Chariff, president of Chariff Realty Group, told TRD.

The commercial building, which was built in 1946, sits on a 10,250-square-foot lot. The partnership had paid $2 million, or $620 per square foot for the site in October 2012, according to Miami-Dade property records.

The buyer in the deal, which closed on Monday, is Design Stage LLC, a Florida private equity firm, whose principal is Arnaud Sitbon, Chariff said. At $6.9 million, the price equates to $2,140 per square foot.

Chariff and partner Mauricio Zapata represented both sides of the deal.

“It was a very quick, quietly marketed transaction between an intimate group of buyers and sellers,” Chariff said.

The new owners plan to tear down the building and redevelop it, he said.

Chariff’s firm has brokered several sales and leases for the site since 2003, Zapata told TRD. The last lease was to the Stage, a nightclub that has since vacated the property.

“The interesting thing is that when we last sold it, I had it listed it and I was talking to [13th Floor Managing Principal] Arnaud [Karsenti] and Avra, and they both were very interested, and the problem was who was going to get it. Both were going to pay the same thing, and the seller was saying ‘You make the choice; it’s the same deal,'” Chariff said.

“At the final hour, I had them both come in, and I said ‘Listen guys, this is what we are up against. If you are going to buy it you have you to do it together,'” Chariff said. “And they made a partnership right there in my office, and they bought it.”

The property is just south of the entrance to the Palm Court Garage, on Northeast 38th Street between Northeast First Court and Northeast Second Avenue. The pedestrian exit is a spiral staircase from the underground garage out into a reproduction of R. Buckminster Fuller’s Fly’s Eye Dome, which is centered in Palm Court’s plaza.

Amid the changes in the Design District, prices for commercial property are rising exponentially. In March, New York-based Thor Equities paid $16 million for 56 Northeast 40th Street and 55 Northeast 39th Street. Also in March, Brooklyn-based RedSky Capital and London-based JZ Capital Management purchased 35 Northeast 40th Street, the home of Oak Tavern, for $28 million; and 1 Northeast 40th Street for $29.25 million.

Last week, a property at the edge of the Miami Design District — whose tenants include Michael Schwartz’s Cypress Room — traded hands at triple its 2012 price. Investor Harry Benitah bought the 5,186-square-foot building at 3620 Northeast Second Avenue for $5.5 million from a partnership between Chariff, Zapata and Shawn Chemtov.

Renderings of the Wave in South Beach

The Miami Beach Design Review Board on Tuesday gave its approval for two large Crescent Heights projects that could transform much of Alton Road for years to come.

After rejecting an earlier design last month, the board signed off on the Wave development, a mixed-use four-building project that is projected to have 300,000-square feet of residential space, including 321 apartments, and approximately 50,000 square feet of retail space.

The Wave will be located between Fifth and Seventh streets and between Alton Road and West Avenue. Much of the project had received earlier design approval, but last month the Design Review Board rejected planned undulating balconies for many of the residential units, saying the balconies were not functional and would block view corridors. A more streamlined balcony design got a positive reception from the board on Tuesday with minor design modifications to proposed balcony railings.

Marisa Galbut, retail development manager for Crescent Heights, said that with the board’s approval the mammoth project can now move forward in the permitting process, and construction could begin next January on a 24-month timetable to completion.

Crescent Heights also got design approval for its plans to build a new 50,000-square foot project at 1901 Alton Road that will include a new 40,000-square foot Whole Foods Market.

Rendering of Whole Foods Market

The project, which received approval last month from the Miami Beach Planning Board, requires Crescent Heights to build a traffic roundabout at Dade Boulevard and 19th Street.  The intersection is one of the most congested on Miami Beach and traffic issues had delayed the approval process for the project.

The planning board rejected an earlier design in January but the Design Review Board endorsed the latest plan, which includes a screened front that will cover vegetation, on Tuesday, with minor modifications. Crescent Heights also received a three-foot height variance to cover rooftop-cooling systems.

The new store will have 272-parking spaces and a 198-seat café. Whole Foods said a smaller 18,000-square foot store at Alton Road and 10th Street will remain open.

The site is owned by Wells Fargo Bank, which has a branch there. A new branch will open inside the building. Whole Foods has been aggressively expanding in South Florida, including launching new stores in Pompano Beach and downtown Miami.

Renderings of proposed Mount Sinai tower

Officials from the Mount Sinai Medical Center of Florida got design review approval from Miami Beach on Tuesday for a new eight-story hospital tower and emergency care facility to be built on the medical campus facing Biscayne Bay.

While the Design Review Board gave a strong endorsement to the new tower designed by CannonDesign of St. Louis, it held off on plans to approve an extensive landscaping plan for the project, saying the current plan submitted needed more work and should be re-submitted at next month’s board meeting.

The board expressed concerns over the location of vegetation, trees and the size of parking spaces submitted in the plan. Among the landscaping issues to be finalized is the construction of a public Baywalk that will run along the Biscayne Bay waterfront in front of the new hospital tower.

The board strongly endorsed plans for the new tower, which contains a narrow trapezoid footprint with a one-story attached emergency department that will more than double the current ER facilities.

The new tower will be located at the center of the medical campus facing Biscayne Bay and will contain the new surgery facility, emergency care areas and patient rooms. George Nikolajevich, design principal at CannonDesign said the tower’s shape was designed so that as many rooms as possible would have bay views — something Mount Sinai officials say will benefit their patients. The new facility will have 350,000-square feet, with patient facilities of 155 rooms per floor.

Mount Sinai’s emergency department was built in 1972 and much of its campus dates back even before than. It is now the only hospital on Miami Beach and its emergency room receives twice as many visitors as it did when it opened, officials said. A $173 million bond issue will fund much of the expansion, with about another $100 million coming from charitable contributions.

Renderings of 321 Ocean

1. Expedia CEO buys pair of Miami Beach condos for $10M [South Florida Business Journal]
2. Realtors see “marginal agents” as major threat to industry [Business Insider]
3. Villa Magna developers want to build 1,000-foot tower [The Next Miami]
4. Riverside Market to open second Fort Lauderdale restaurant [Sun Sentinel]
5. Moscow’s poshest neighborhood is shockingly empty as money pours out of Russia [Business Insider]

— Katherine Kallergis

Current reader favorites:
1. Inside look at Calvin Klein’s Miami Beach home
2. Hyatt Centric South Beach opens
3. West Palm office towers sell for $246M
4. Brazilians keep their eyes on Miami
5. The Wrap: Celine Dion’s husband takes out $35M mortgage on Jupiter Island home, Realtors see “marginal agents” as major threat to industry…and more

Rendering of the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, designed by Madrid-based Aranguren & Gallegos Arquitectos

Plans for the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami’s new home in the Design District received a significant boost yesterday.

During a contentious hearing that lasted more than two hours, Miami’s Historic and Environmental Protection Board voted 3 to 2 to let ICA tear down three homes in the historic Buena Vista neighborhood to make way for a sculpture garden that is part of the planned museum.

The project’s design and construction is being financed by billionaire auto dealer Norman Braman and his wife, Irma, who is chairwoman of ICA’s board of directors. The couple funded ICA’s $1.6 million purchase of two residential properties on Northeast 42nd Street and between Northeast First Avenue and North Miami Avenue, said Steven Helfman, a land use attorney for the institute.

Design District developer, and Dacra President and CEO Craig Robins deeded the third residence, as well as two adjoining empty commercial lots on Northeast 41st Street where the actual museum building will be located, over to the institute last year.

“Mr. Braman bought millions of dollars worth of property to create a buffer so you don’t have a museum that is right up against a residential neighborhood,” Helfman told the preservation board. “This is a nonprofit, civic philanthropic effort.”

Last month, ICA hit a snag when the city’s Planning and Zoning Appeals Board delayed its decision to approve or deny changing the zoning on the three residential properties pending the preservation board’s vote. During that meeting, several homeowners and representatives of the Buena Vista East Historic Neighborhood Association voiced their opposition to the project.

Since then, the association and ICA reached an agreement, according to Buena Vista East President Jerome Schiller. “I have been in dialogue with ICA to discuss several issues that we have,” Schiller informed the preservation board. “We went from totally not supporting the project to being for it. We understand it is going to be a civic institute.”

Schiller and Helfman said both parties had entered into a covenant that would protect the character of the Buena Vista neighborhood and minimize the impact to residents. “We have been put in a very difficult position,” said Helfman. “We have attempted to address all of their concerns. We think we have done that.”

Despite the truce between the association and ICA, some homeowners still spoke out against the project.

Wendy Stephan, who owns three Buena Vista homes including one on the same block as the proposed garden, said allowing ICA to demolish the three properties would set a dangerous precedent. “We think this threatens the integrity of the historic district,” Stephan said.

Jeff Archer, a 40-year Buena Vista resident, said the museum and sculpture garden would bring congestion to the neighborhood, as well as noise and light pollution. “I feel like my privacy is being taken away from me,” Archer said. “I know they are going to be having parties and the noise is going to be crazy. That is one of my biggest problems.”

Preservation board chairman William E. Hopper Jr. sympathized with the locals and voted against ICA. “This looks like the nose of the camel protruding into a historic district,” Hopper said. “And I am uncomfortable with that.”

The residents almost got their way. The preservation board initially voted 3 to 2 to deny the demolition of the three homes. However, board member David Freedman flipped his vote after adding a caveat restricting access to a proposed gate for emergencies only.

Lawyers for ICA had explained that the institute also needed to use the gate to bring in sculptures that are too large to enter through the planned museum. Helfman said ICA may appeal the restriction to the city commission. But first, the institute has to go back to the zoning appeals board in July.

The Camelot West Apartments in Broward County

A Canadian group made a cool $1.3 million after selling the Camelot West Apartments in Wilton Manors.

Brass Enterprises, a Toronto-based company that acquires apartment complexes, first purchased Camelot for $4.7 million in 2012. Three years later, the firm traded it for $6 million to TamuzUSA, a South Florida-based management and investment company that specializes in buying foreclosure properties.

Camelot has 73 rental units spread over four two-story buildings. Most of them are one-bedroom, one-bathroom units, with two studios and 17 dozen two-bedroom, two-bathroom units evening out the mix.

The complex also has seven office units with ground-floor access.

Cushman & Wakefield’s Daniel J. Cunningham and Derek R. Gibbs brokered the sale for Brass.

“This was a great opportunity for an investor to acquire a stabilized 73-unit apartment community in the attractive niche rental market of Wilton Manors,” Cunningham said in a statement. “The property will benefit from Wilton Manors’ growing rental demand trend and long-term outlook.”

Brass got its start buying apartment complexes in Saskatchewan, Canada, and began investing heavily in Toronto. The firm saw heavy gains, as it says on its website, and sold almost all of its Toronto investments within four years of their purchase.

Over the past three years, Brass has started investing in South Florida, and has now turned its attention to Austin, Texas.

From the New York magazine’s June issue: During the dark days of the credit crisis, developers discovered something of a silver bullet in a little-known U.S. immigration program. Now wildly popular and well-publicized, the EB-5 program offers a green card and potential citizenship to foreign investors in exchange for economic investment in the U.S. [more]

7000 West Palmetto Park Road in Boca Raton, now City National Bank Plaza

A Stoltz-managed office building in Boca Raton sold for $23 million, months after the owner defaulted on its mortgage, Palm Beach County records show.

Arbern Investors III, an LLC managed by Morris Stoltz, sold the 132,598-square-foot building at 7000 Palmetto Park Road to Palmetto I LLC. The buyer obtained a $27 million mortgage from commercial lender C-III Commercial Mortgage, a subsidiary of C-III Capital Partners, according to county records.

City National Bank Plaza sits on 7.3 acres and was built in 1986. The six-story building includes a 9,928-square-foot restaurant, according to Palm Beach County property records. Arbern paid $15.4 million for the property in 1987, records show, and was hit with a foreclosure lawsuit in 2011.

In September, a commercial mortgage-backed securities loan for the site was moved into special servicing, the South Florida Business Journal reported at the time. Stoltz told the newspaper he wanted to prepay the mortgage and refinance the building to fund tenant improvements.

The address listed for the buyer matches that of Stoltz Companies, a Boca Raton-based real estate developer, management company, builder and brokerage.

A rendering of Miami Worldcenter’s first phase

Grand Central Lounge and the Omni/Park West Redevelopment Association, which have fought Miami Worldcenter through lawsuits for months, have voluntarily dismissed their suits against the developers of the massive mixed-use project, The Real Deal has learned.

Sources close to the deals speculate that there may be a confidential settlement, though no details have yet surfaced. The dismissals were “with prejudice,” meaning that Grand Central and the Omni/Park West Redevelopment Association have forgone their rights to pursue litigation in the future.

The suits were first filed by attorney Paul Savage last year. The first was on behalf of Grand Central and the Omni/Park West Redevelopment Association last June, surrounding street closures. The second suit, filed in December, alleged that an entitlement package awarded to the project by the city of Miami, which asked the developers to hire local workers in exchange for zoning exemptions and land use rights, had violated several state laws.

“I don’t have any comment besides the public record,” Savage told TRD on Wednesday.

Grand Central is a tenant on land owned by Miami Worldcenter, and the developers have tried to evict the club before over an alleged violation of its lease.

Despite the litigation, city commissioners approved the incentive package a second time this year, and Worldcenter received approval to break ground on its first phase in the third quarter of this year.

A spokesperson for Miami Worldcenter also declined to comment.

The $2 billion project, developed by a partnership between Art Falcone and Nitin Motwani, will stretch 27 acres northwest of Miami’s downtown when completed.

Its first phase includes a 765,000-square-foot shopping mall developed by the Forbes Company and Taubman, the 470-unit Paramount Miami Worldcenter condo tower, an 1,800-room Marriott Marquis hotel and convention center and a rental tower developed by Orlando-based ZOM with 429 apartments.

Aventura Optima Plaza

A new, LEED-certified office plaza in Aventura received $31 million in financing, HFF announced on Wednesday.

Mercantil Commercebank was the lender for Aventura Optima Plaza, an eight-story class A office and medical office tower at 21500 Biscayne Boulevard.

Developers Jose Bromberg and Ariel Bromberg acquired the 1.6-acre site for $5.5 million in July 2008, according to Miami-Dade property records.

Jim Dockerty, Scott Wadler and Marc Roth of HFF represented the borrower, Inmobiliaria Brom, to obtain the 10-year fixed-rate loan, according to a press release. Mercantil’s Brian Barroso led the deal.

“Aventura Optima Plaza’s success is due to Ariel Bromberg’s masterful combination of the aesthetic and efficient design of the buildings along with their focused hands-on management,” Dockerty said in a statement. “The property is one of the finest office addresses in South Florida and is one of only two LEED Platinum buildings in the state of Florida.”

The 346,161-square-foot building, completed in 2013, includes balconies, a gym, a 20,000-square-foot rooftop garage with an outdoor jogging trail and a fifth floor social deck. Tenants include Benihana’s U.S. headquarters, Fossil and Adler Kawa Real Estate Advisors.

The complex is down the street from the Village at Gulfstream Park, and Aventura ParkSquare, an 8.5-acre mixed-use community, complete with condos, senior living, a select-service hotel, offices and retail, slated to open in early 2017.

The Related Group and Dezer Development hosted a neighborhood discussion recently, led by Design District developer Craig Robins.

Robins, president and CEO of Dacra, discussed the future of development in Midtown, as well as its connectivity to Wynwood and the Design District.

The event was held at Hyde Midtown, a joint venture between Related, Dezer and sbe, is slated for completion during the second quarter of 2018. Rockwell Group is designing the lobby, amenity floors, elevator corridors and the 60 designer suites at the development, which will have an additional 410 condos, a seventh floor pool terrace and tennis court, and a private screening center. — Katherine Kallergis and Sean Stewart-Muniz