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Macy’s shopping bag

From the New York website: With sales continuing to slide, graying retailer Macy’s is teaming up with Brookfield Asset Management to evaluate options for developing real estate at some 50 store locations.

The department store said on its quarterly earnings call Thursday that it will sell stores in San Francisco and downtown Portland, and will continue to weigh options for locations in Minneapolis, Chicago and New York City, Forbes reported.

Earlier this year, Macy’s tapped Eastdil Secured [TRDataCustom] to market partnership stakes in several properties, including its iconic Herald Square location. That was after selling its Downtown Brooklyn store at 422 Fulton Street to Tishman Speyer for $170 million.

Meanwhile, Macy’s will work with Brookfield to explore redeveloping existing stores or strips of unused land. These locations will mostly be owned and ground-leased in shopping malls that are not owned by big-time mall operators, according to Forbes.

Macy’s, like many of its competitors, has been struggling amid a tough retail environment. The company has had to close more than 100 locations and lay off employees in order to cut costs.

Net income in the third quarter fell to $17 million, down from $118 million the same time last year. [Forbes] – Rich Bockmann

7924 Northeast Second Avenue. Inset: Avra Jain

Avra Jain and Joe Del Vecchio sold a gutted building in Miami’s Little River neighborhood to a group of New York investors for $10 million with plans to turn it into a live/work office development.

AHOS 2 LLC sold the 178,000-square-foot building at 7924 Northeast Second Avenue in Miami, which sits on a 3-acre property, to MD 79th Holding LLC in an off-market deal, broker Devlin Marinoff told The Real Deal. State records show the LLC is controlled by Robert Danial, who owns the Rail 71 retail development with other investors.

Jain will stay on and work on the project, and said she teamed up with the buyers to accelerate the redevelopment. “They’re going to make it happen now,” she told TRD.

Devlin Marinoff

Marinoff, of Whitehall Realty Group, represented the buyer and Metro 1 Commercial’s Tony Arellano, Tony Cho and Alfredo Riascos represented the seller.

The demand for creative office space in the Little River/Little Haiti neighborhoods is high, Jain and Marinoff both said, with businesses relocating from the Design District and Wynwood.

“There’s a lot of work to do to turn this into a completed project,” Marinoff said, citing the success of Rail 71 nearby. The 120,000-square-foot flex warehouse conversion at 7205 Northeast Fourth Avenue is fully leased with “outperforming rents” to tenants like Bousa Brewery and Ironflower Gym.

“It’s a great opportunity to create something really special on that corner,” Del Vecchio told TRD.  He and Jain have redeveloped a number of properties in MiMo, including 5555 Biscayne Boulevard and the Vagabond Hotel. Jain was also part of the Rail 71 project early on.

The Little River neighborhood has quietly attracted investors in recent years.

Jain and investor Matthew Vander Werff want to transform a 20-block area located roughly between Northwest 71st and 75th streets, North Miami Avenue and Northwest Second Avenue. Their goal is to turn a place once dominated by abandoned warehouses, rag shops, and storefront churches into “Little River // Miami.”

Metro 1 could not immediately be reached for comment.

Rendering of the redesigned Miami Worldcenter

Miami Worldcenter is already starting to come out of the ground, but that didn’t stop a neighboring condo association from appealing the project’s high street retail plans.

The appeal challenges an October approval from Miami’s Planning & Zoning board that gave the green light for developers Nitin Motwani, Dan Kodsi and Art Falcone to move forward with their vast redesign of Miami Worldcenter’s retail component.

Michael Gongora, an attorney representing 900 Biscayne, told The Real Deal that the condo association wasn’t against Worldcenter’s original enclosed mall design — but wants to better understand how the 63-story tower will be affected by the shopping center’s new open-air design.

“The project is under construction and clearly will get built,” he said. “Sometimes the only chance an abutting property has to learn about a project is to file an appeal and come to the table.”

In January, the developers announced they were paring back Worldcenter’s retail component from 750,000 square feet to 450,000 square feet, as well as adopting a layout akin to Miami Beach’s Lincoln Road.

The move, as Motwani told it, was a hedge against the changing retail landscape nationwide. It also left uncertain the fate of Worldcenter’s original anchor tenants, Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s, which have not yet announced whether they’re sticking with the project.

Located at 900 Biscayne Boulevard, the appealing condo tower sits just across Northeast Second Avenue from Worldcenter. Its pool deck overlooks the project, as do all of its western-facing units.

Miami’s Planning, Zoning & Appeals Board is slated to hear the appeal come December, but Gongora said talks between the association and Worldcenter’s developers are expected to begin long before that.

If successful, the appeal, first reported by the Next Miami, could nullify the city’s approval of Worldcenter’s redesign. Gongora said the association will decide on the next course of action depending on how discussions play out with the developers.

Worldcenter and its accompanying condo tower, Paramount Miami Worldcenter, held a groundbreaking event in March. A spokesperson for the developers said the team is in contact with the association and “hopes to resolve any perceived concerns in-person over the coming days.”

Regalia unit 38. Inset: Melissa Zachariasz

The owner and president of a Tamarac-based medical billing company paid $9 million for a unit at Regalia in Sunny Isles Beach.

Records show Nena C. Moss sold unit 38 to Melissa Zachariasz of MedPro Billing, a company that focuses on the substance abuse and the mental health industry.

Zachariasz paid $1,632 per square foot for the four-bedroom, 5,515-square-foot condo at 19575 Collins Avenue. Her full-floor unit features wraparound glass balconies, luxury finishes, Creston controls, and a kosher kitchen, according to the listing, handled by One Sotheby’s International Realty. It was last on the market for $10 million.

Moss paid $8 million for the unit when the building opened in 2014, records show. She was married to the late Joseph Moss, who made his money in the stock market after a decades-long career as a Delta pilot, according to the Albany Business Review. Together they owned race horses.

Zachariasz founded MedPro in 1992, according to the company’s website. Broward County records show she was arrested in 2011 for possession of Lorazepam, which she pleaded not guilty to and served community service.

No financing was recorded for her Regalia unit.

The 39-story tower has six pools, a spa, cabanas, a fitness center, yoga studio, children’s playhouse, a chef’s kitchen and a champagne bar and wine cellar. In April, a Miami law firm sued the project’s original developers and one of their creditors in Miami-Dade Circuit Court over unpaid attorney fees totaling more than $1 million at Regalia.

From left: Donald Trump and Gonzalo Curiel

From the New York website: Comments President-elect Donald Trump made while on the campaign trail could be used in the upcoming trial over Trump University.

U.S District Judge Gonzalo Curiel denied Trump lawyers’ request for a broad ban excluding all comments he made during the campaign, which they had said were irrelevant to the matter of whether Trump had deliberately mislead students.

“Defendants have not identified specific evidence that they wish to exclude,” Curiel said in his tentative decision, according to Crain’s. “Accordingly, the court declines to issue a blanket ruling at this time.”

While Trump’s lawyers did not identify any specific comments he wanted barred from the trial, the president-elect drew criticism for saying that earlier rulings by Curiel – who was born in Indiana to Mexican immigrants – were retribution for the real estate mogul’s plan to build a wall at the border between the United States and Mexico.

The trial in the class-action suit brought on behalf of former students in California, Florida and New York is set for Nov. 28. The suit claims the now-defunct university scammed students into paying as much as $35,000 for real estate seminars.

Trump started the school in 2005, touting it as a way to learn his strategies for business success.

On Wednesday, The Real Deal asked some of the real estate industry’s leading players how they felt about Trump’s surprise election victory. [Crain’s] – Rich Bockmann

Mast Capital teed off its 3900 Alton project with a golf tournament for brokers late last month.

CEO Camilo Miguel Jr. hosted the event at the Miami Beach Golf Club late October where guests played 18 holes of scramble-style golf, and enjoyed cocktails and an award ceremony.

3900 Alton is an eight-story, 78-unit luxury condo project designed by Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill. Mast Capital launched sales for the building earlier this year with units starting at $790,000.

The units, which will range from one-bedroom to four-bedrooms, include floor-to-ceiling windows, home automation systems, designer kitchens, 10-foot ceilings, open floor plans and direct elevator access. Square footage for units will be between 927 square feet and 2,182 square feet. Fortune is handling sales.

The developer bought the site, a 1.9-acre parking lot by the I-195 ramp in Miami Beach, in October 2014 for about $17 million. – Katherine Kallergis and Sean Stewart-Muniz

The 11-acre parcel 1174-1185 Hillsboro Mile (left) and two smaller lots at 1103 and 1107 Hlillsboro Mile.

The foreclosure saga of three prime oceanfront sites owned by homebuilder John Kennelly in Hillsboro Beach has come to an end.

A bankruptcy judge reportedly approved three separate sales for a combined $48.5 million this week, following a failed auction last month where the opening bid was set at $57 million.

Kennelly had struck a deal with his lender BridgeInvest to stave off a $38 million foreclosure suit earlier this year, agreeing to either sell or refinance the properties by November. He brought on SVN Moecker Realty to help market the properties.

But after a disappointing auction last month, according to the South Florida Business Journal, the homebuilder’s attorney moved to sell the land in separate deals.

In the largest sale, a company called Dome Realty dropped $35 million for 11.3 acres at 1174-1185 Hillsboro Mile, which is zoned for multifamily and could house up to 168 units, the Business Journal reported.

Another nearly 1.5-acre chunk at 1103 Hillsboro Mile was scooped up by Paul and Carol Cutler, executives at green energy investment company Power Generations, for $8.25 million.

Deborah and Sean Acosta also paid $5.25 million for an acre at 1107 Hillsboro Mile.

As SVN’s Keith Kidwell told The Real Deal earlier this year, the smaller lots are zoned for single-family homes and could be developed into large oceanfront spec houses. Just down the street, one of the country’s most expensive homes is up for grabs at $165 million.

The sales yielded enough cash for Kennelly to pay off his companies’s debts to BridgeInvest, the Journal reported. [South Florida Business Journal] — Sean Stewart-Muniz

85 Palm Avenue. Inset: Julian Johnston

After a few years on and off the market, a Miami urologist and his wife have dropped Coldwell Banker duo the Jills and hired Miami Beach broker Julian Johnston to relist their waterfront Palm Island home for $13.9 million, or $1,432 a foot. 

Records show Dr. Martin Madorsky and Judith Richard own the 9,708-square-foot mansion, which they completed in 2014. Before the Jills had the property listed for the same price, it was on the market with Coldwell Banker’s Jeri Jenkins.

Johnston, owner of Calibre International Realty, said he knew the owners before they hired him to relist the property at 85 Palm Avenue.

The two-story, eight-bedroom home features imported woods from Asia, loggias, an open kitchen, a marble pool and 100 feet of water frontage, according to the MLS. Johnston said it’s set up for entertaining.

Madorsky and Richard paid $4.86 million for the 30,000-square-foot property in 2005, records show. They knocked down the 1978-house and built a tropical modern mansion in its place.

Madorsky is a urologist at the Urology Center of South Florida. Luxury agents in Miami Beach have said that doctors and lawyers are being priced out of the market, including the Venetian and Sunset islands, to financial executives, CEOs and foreign buyers.

On Palm Island, a lot of the same size sold to a spec home developer for $9 million in September, which comes out to $300 a foot for the land. A smaller home than Madorsky and Richard’s sold for $896 per square foot this summer, also on Palm Island at 250 South Coconut Lane.

The Four Points by Sheraton in Havana and Donald Trump

President Barack Obama’s two-year push to thaw relations with Cuba has spurred interest in U.S. real estate deals on the island and even the launch of a Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Havana this June.

But Tuesday’s victory by President-elect Donald Trump could throw a chill on budding ties with the communist-led nation, analysts warn.

During the campaign, Trump pledged to reverse Obama’s executive orders that warmed relations unless Cuba agrees to “restore” political freedoms on the island – a move considered unlikely by Raul Castro’s administration.

Yet many executives active in U.S.-Cuba business see room for a President Trump to moderate his stance for two key reasons: The billionaire real estate developer had earlier backed détente with the island, and closer ties help U.S. business and jobs.

What’s more, those Cuban-American hardliners pushing to reverse Obama’s thaw did not bring out the Cuban-American electorate for Trump in Florida. Hillary Clinton won that vote.

“There is strong, and growing, support across the American public and the American business community to strengthen relations with Cuba,” James Williams, president of nonprofit Engage Cuba, said in a statement. “We remain hopeful that Mr. Trump, who has previously supported engagement with Cuba as a businessman and a politician, will continue to normalize relations that will benefit both the American and Cuban people.”

Many U.S. companies with new business in Cuba want to defend their stake.

Hotel giant Marriott, whose Sheraton brand already runs one Havana hotel and which has approvals to manage two more, now sees “protecting our ability to do business in Cuba” among “our policy priorities,” said spokesman Jeff Flaherty in an email. “Given our roots in the Washington, D.C. region, Marriott has a long history of engaging with policymakers from both political parties, and we’ll continue that important dialogue.”

Obama said he turned to executive action on Cuba because Congress would not act on a failed U.S. policy, including a nearly 60-year-old embargo aimed to spur regime change on the island. His action allowed U.S. airlines and cruise lines to start their first commercial service to Cuba in half-a-century, creating business this year for American, Delta, Southwest, JetBlue and Carnival’s fathom line, among others.

Obama’s push required the writing of detailed new regulations on business with Cuba from U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments. Rolling back those complex regulations won’t be simple, said corporate attorney Pedro Freyre, a veteran in Cuba business and chairman of the international practice at Akerman law firm in Miami. Plus, Trump will have other policy considerations to weigh on Cuba, including growing cooperation with Havana on drug-smuggling, oil spills and immigration.

“It’s not black and white,” said Freyre, analyzing what Trump might do on Cuba.

“You’re going to have in the White House a real estate developer,” he told The Real Deal. “I bet you dollars to doughnuts, he’s going to be thinking about that [business], because that’s who he is and what he does.”

Trump’s real estate group reportedly scouted for business in Cuba in the 1990s, according to Newsweek and Bloomberg.

While a full reversal of Cuba regulations seems “unlikely,” Trump may well “increase conditionality” on U.S.-Cuba business — at least until Feb. 2018, when Cuba’s Raul Castro has said he’ll step down, said John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council.

The Cuban government could be “defiant” toward Trump’s conditions, Kavulich said. Indeed, Cuba announced Wednesday that its five days of military exercises scheduled on the island will prepare “for a range of enemy actions.”

That leaves U.S. companies interested in Cuba a tight window until Trump takes office Jan. 20 to “seek as many regulatory changes and as many individual licenses as possible” from the Obama administration, said Kavulich. He would like to see new regulations allow all transactions with Cuban government companies and all trade under general license, rather than specific licenses for each activity.

Because of the embargo, U.S. companies can’t own real estate in Cuba. Some now rent space on the island for their businesses. Lifting the embargo so far has proved impossible. Yet Engage Cuba’s Williams said his group and allies will keep pushing to end the Cold War policy, heartened by this week’s election of “even more pro-engagement Republican and Democratic members of Congress.”

7413 Fisher Island Drive (Inset: Bruce McMahan)

Hedge fund executive Bruce McMahan just chopped the asking price for his Fisher Island condo by $4 million, lowering the oceanfront pad’s listing price to $16.9 million.

Located on the ground floor at 7413 Fisher Island Drive, McMahan’s unit measures 7,696 square feet and houses five bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms, a custom-built wood bar and its own infinity-edge pool on the terrace.The new asking price breaks down to just below $2,196 per foot.

The condo is decked out to the nines with ritzy finishes like Jerusalem stone floors and Italian rose marble, as well as hand-painted murals on several walls and ceilings. It also boasts 5,300 square feet of terrace space that looks out over the ocean. He’s the CEO of Centaur Performance Group, an investment firm formerly known as the Argent Funds Group.

Interior and exterior shots of the unit

According to a New York Times article from 2009 when McMahan first listed the unit for $30 million, the hedge funder almost exclusively used his Fisher Island pad to entertain business associates.

Coldwell Banker’s The Jills team came into the picture in October of last year with a newly reduced asking price of $21 million. The agents announced this most recent price drop Friday.

Fisher Island is no stranger to pricey homes, with units in the recently completed Palazzo Del Sol project trading for upwards of $30 million. Attorney Jim Ferraro set a price per square foot record of $3,200 with his $21.5 million purchase of a condo there.

County records show McMahan paid $5.5 million for the unit when it was first built in 2002. He later transferred ownership to the National Cristina Foundation, a nonprofit that donates technology to disabled children that he co-created in the name of his daughter, Cristina McMahan, who suffers from cerebral palsy.

Freddie Mac

Can computers, big data and advanced analytics replace real live humans when it comes to accurately valuing the home you want to buy? One of the two largest financial players in U.S. real estate thinks so and is preparing to introduce changes that could prove momentous — and highly controversial.

Giant mortgage investor Freddie Mac plans to dispense with traditional appraisals on some loan applications for home purchases, replacing them with an alternative valuation system that would be free of charge to both lenders and borrowers. The company confirmed to me last week that it could begin the no-appraisal concept as early as next spring. Instead of using professional appraisers, Freddie plans to tap into what it says is a vast trove of data it has assembled on millions of existing houses nationwide, supplement that with additional, unspecified information related to valuation, and use the results in its assessments of applications.

For consumers, the company believes, this could not only eliminate appraisal expenses — which typically range from $350 to $600 or more — but could cut down on current closing delays attributable to appraisals. It could also relieve lenders of their current burdens of responsibility for the accuracy of appraisals — a major sore point with banks that sell loans to Freddie subject to potential “buy back” demands if significant errors are later found in appraisals.

But critics argue that Freddie is headed down a perilous road. Doing away with formal appraisals by trained professionals could massively increase the company’s exposure to future losses on defaults, they say, and would likely end up being paid for by American taxpayers. Reliance on publicly available data without careful physical inspections of properties verges on “craziness,” said Joe Adamaitis, residential lending manager for Insignia Bank in Sarasota, Florida. “We would never allow it here.”

Not surprisingly, appraisers who know about the plans are up in arms. The Chicago-based Appraisal Institute, the largest professional group in the valuation field, has written to Freddie Mac’s regulator, Mel Watt, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, urging him to take a hard look. Freddie Mac’s “decision to veer away from fundamental risk management practices appears to harken back to the loan production-driven days in the years leading up to the 2007-2008 financial crisis” — abuses that “turned out to be disastrous for the entire economy,” the group wrote.

Veteran appraisers such as Pat Turner of Richmond, Virginia, believe that abandoning traditional valuation practices will leave Freddie Mac essentially “flying blind” in many instances. In a phone interview, he said he has inspected houses where the interior damage and neglect have been so extensive — none of it on public records or visible to automated systems — that the differences in market value arrived at by a computer compared with a trained professional are potentially catastrophic for any investor. Similarly, without an inspection, an automated valuation might not reflect whatever significant improvements you’ve made that are not on any public records.

For years an outspoken critic of the popular but frequently inaccurate automated valuation systems offered free by Zillow and other websites, Turner asked: “When was the last time a Zillow computer walked into your house?” Computerized estimates “can’t tell you everything you need to know about value,” said Turner.

But Freddie’s idea has strong defenders in the mortgage industry. Jay Farner, president of Quicken Loans, headquartered in Detroit and the second largest retail mortgage lender, told me “we’re in support of doing something to alleviate the situation today,” where appraisal delays can cause rate locks to expire and closings to be postponed.

Though “a large percentage of loans do require an appraisal,” he said, others could be safely underwritten with a combination of strong previous valuation data on the property, possibly combined with a “walk-through” inspection.

Bill Dallas, chairman and CEO of Skyline Financial Corp in Calabasas, California, calls the traditional use of appraisers “a really screwed up system.” He’d like to see the industry move toward an approach that makes maximum use of the huge property-specific databases built up from previous appraisals along with inspections when needed.

Where’s this all headed? We’ll begin to know in a few months. But don’t expect appraisers to suddenly disappear. The best of them add essential value to the process of telling a lender or investor what a house is truly worth, based on up-to-the-minute market information and a hands-on physical inspection — services no computer can perform, at least not yet.

Don Peebles and John Catsimatidis

From the New York website: Developer Don Peebles and former mayoral hopeful John Catsimatidis both say they’re seriously considering joining the New York mayoral race come January.

Peebles, a Democrat who has been mulling over a mayoral bid for more than a year, told Fox Business he is “real close” to announcing a run. In the interview, he said the city is in trouble under Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is “corrupt and incompetent,” and that Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in the presidential election has made it clear what the people want.

“I think the public wants to see more business people, and Mike Bloomberg was a great mayor,” Peebles told the Fox interviewer.

Peebles lives part-time in Coral Gables and has been an active developer in the Miami area.

Fellow developer John Catsimatidis, who said he has “one more race left” in him, says his considerations have not been influenced by Trump’s victory, the New York Post reported. He’s alternatively considering a Senate run in 2018.

Catsimatidis ran for mayor in 2013 but lost in the Republican primary to Joe Lhota, who lost to de Blasio. The businessman had spent $10 million o this own money on the failed campaign.

If they do run for mayor, Catsimatidis will join developer Paul Massey and former New York Jet Michael Faulkner as the Republican challengers to de Blasio. [NYP and FOXand NYP] — Chava Gourarie

Donald Trump (Credit: Gage Skidmore)

1. Palm Beach officials ponder traffic and security after Trump win [Palm Beach Daily News]
2. Financing set to bring Tri-Rail trains into MiamiCentral station [Miami Today]
3. ‘No Vacancy’ signs are vanishing from America’s highways [Bloomberg]
4. Miami will sink farther underwater in Trump’s America [Miami New Times]

— Sean Stewart-Muniz

Jared Kushner and the White House (Illustration by Paul Kisselev)

From the New York site: While President-elect Donald Trump met with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office Thursday, Jared Kushner strolled the White House’s South Lawn with Obama’s chief of staff Denis McDonough.

The sight of the two men deep in discussion sent tabloids into overdrive: Might Trump tap Kushner to be his chief of staff? Fueling that thesis was the fact Kushner was brought along to the meet-and-greet with the first family, while Trump’s own sons, Eric and Donald Jr., were not.

The 35-year-old CEO of Kushner Companies and publisher of the New York Observer (as of today, simply Observer.com) had long been identified as a key player in Trump’s campaign. He was credited with helping to broker conversations between Trump and former Fox News chief Roger Ailes, mounting a social media offensive and data engine that allowed the campaign to target people who supported Trump on Facebook, and courting Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to help him scale the campaign’s marketing efforts.

As the campaign steamrolled along, Kushner gained increasing influence, with the New York Times dubbing him Trump’s “de-facto campaign manager.” In late August, he reportedly arranged Trump’s meeting with the president of Mexico. Kushner is also one of 12 members of Trump’s transition team, which includes Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel and Trump campaign chairman Stephen Bannon.

White House pool report: Denis McDonough “led Jared Kushner on a walk down the South Lawn” pic.twitter.com/RZ4ia5lRo5

— Robert Costa (@costareports) November 10, 2016

What Trump’s surprise win Tuesday will mean for Kushner going forward remains a source of speculation, particularly within Kushner’s own business circles in New York. His firm has become a force in the city’s real estate market, making acquisitions worth more than $3 billion since 2005, according to Real Capital Analytics. But will his new status as son-in-law to the chief further add to his clout?

“I think the family closeness will mean that President-elect Trump will continue to confer with him and Jared will provide advice when asked,” said Robert Ivanhoe of Greenberg Traurig, Kushner’s attorney. “When Trump has questions or wants to talk to someone who he really trusts and respects, I would imagine he’ll call Jared.”

Aide de camp

Kushner faces a tough choice between continuing to build his real estate empire and a once-in-a-lifetime shot to be a player at the highest level of government.

“An opportunity to serve our nation has to be compelling,” said Don Peebles, a developer who is considering a run for mayor of New York. “I’m wrestling with that right now as I consider a run — what would it mean for my business? Generally speaking, when you serve in an administration period, you wouldn’t be able to run your business.”

Don Peebles

Kushner was thrust into a leadership role at the company in 2005, after his father, Charles Kushner, went to prison on charges of tax evasion, illegal campaign donations and witness tampering. Jared officially became CEO in 2008, but Charles continues to play a significant behind-the-scenes role at the company and is consulted on almost every aspect of the business, sources said.

The firm has also promoted other executives. In the run up to the election, Kushner named Laurent Morali, who joined in 2008 from Calyon Securities, as the company’s new president, its first in a decade. But sources said that while Morali is present in meetings, Kushner makes the call when it comes to acquisitions and other major decisions.

“I’m sure Jared’s got a good team and his business should be able to continue without him,” Peebles said.

But policy experts told TRD that Kushner may not have a clear path to a job in the White House, thanks to anti-nepotism policies, which dictate that public officials cannot tap their relatives for official positions. He could, however, serve as the head of a task force, such as when President Bill Clinton designated Hillary Clinton the head of a health reform task force in 1993, according to reports.

“I think the son-in-law raises issues under the anti-nepotism statute,” said Richard Painter, a professor of corporate law at the University of Minnesota. “Trump can’t put his son-in-law in the White House. And he can’t encourage somebody else to do so. He can’t promote or advocate for his employment.”

The snarky salmon

In 2006, Kushner paid nearly $10 million for the Observer, a declining but still-relevant newspaper that covered the quirks of the city’s elite with gusto and gave Kushner instant name recognition. But it continued to slide, both in readership and estimation, and eventually lost its position as an agenda-setting rag.

For months, industry insiders speculated about what motivated Kushner’s role in the Trump campaign. After all, he comes from a long line of Democrats and his paper was the first in New York to endorse Obama for president in 2008. Kushner’s zealous support for his father-in-law put ideological distance between himself and many of his colleagues in the industry — and even his own family members.

Some speculated that he simply craved the spotlight, citing his purchase of the Observer, an attempt to buy the L.A. Dodgers and his trips away on yachts with David Geffen and Wendi Deng, Rupert Murdoch’s ex-wife, as proof that he couldn’t resist the pull of power.

In July, Kushner came under scrutiny from reporters who’d criticized his role in the Trump campaign. But, in later months, Observer brass had been clear that reporters should feel free to write stories that were critical of Trump.

“Jared’s newspaper was clearly a vehicle for many different perspectives including my own, which was one of strong-arm opposition to his father-in-law’s candidacy,” said Jon Reinish, a political strategist and Observer contributor. “My hope is that if Jared is in a position of great influence in this administration, I would hope that he’ll been committed in the same way to listening to and appreciating different viewpoints.”

In August, a political insider told TRD that Kushner’s willingness to take on such a prominent role in the Trump campaign would forever tarnish his legacy.

“The first sentence of his bio will always read ‘Trump’s son-in-law,’ and all of the lasting negatives that go with that will follow him. You mess with the skunk, you get the stink — and the Trump stink is lasting,” the source said.

But Trump won, against all odds, and Kushner’s importance to that victory is likely to carry serious heft.

Donald Trump (illustration by Lexi Pilgrim for The Real Deal)

“I don’t know how much power in business really comes from the fact that your father-in-law is president,” Ivanhoe said. “For the people who go and bid to try to buy a real estate transaction, it comes down to who’s going to pay the best price. When it come to getting a loan from a bank, he’s always been an honorable person with a quality reputation, but maybe having his father-in-law being president will help that even more.”

Though some may have viewed Trump’s run as something straight out of “The Producers,” with the candidate and his staff seemingly sabotaging themselves every step of the way, Kushner may have seen a path to victory all along.

“The family was always more optimistic about Trump’s chances than the press,” Ivanhoe said. “As late as 6.30 p.m. on election night, whatever channel I was watching said there was a 90 percent chance Hillary was going to win. They knew you can’t believe everything you read in the press.”

Rich Bockmann contributed reporting.

The Pulse nightclub in Orlando (Source: OrlandoWeekly.com)

The City of Orlando has a contract to pay $2.25 million for the Pulse nightclub to memorialize the site of a mass shooting in June that left 49 people dead and dozens wounded. Rosario Poma, who owns the 4,500-square-foot property with his wife Barbara, signed the sale contract, which is subject to approval by the Orlando City Council. City staff negotiated the sale price, which is 36 percent above the $1.65 million appraised value of the nightclub.

Now surrounded by a barrier, the property has been closed since the June 12 massacre yet draws a large number of visitors who have left flowers, signs and other items there. Among other options, the city has considered building a memorial and keeping the Pulse property and its iconic sign completely intact. Pulse opened in 2004 and became an Orlando landmark in the gay community. The mass shooting there was the deadliest in U.S. history. [Orlando Sentinel]  — Mike Seemuth            

Privé at Island Estates

The developers of a 160-unit condominium in Aventura called Privé at Island Estates are defendants in a lawsuit filed by the owner of a nearby home who has actively opposed the controversial development.

Dara Clarke, who resides in island community just south of another island where Privé is under construction, staged a one-person protest in February 2015 to block construction of a sidewalk by the developers of Privé, who called the cops. Aventura police charged Clarke and her husband David then destroyed a freshly poured curb by driving their cars over the concrete while it was still wet. Police arrested Clarke and her husband and jailed them.

The developers of Privé— Charles Phelans, Gary Cohen and Daniel Lebenson— subsequently sued the Clarkes for damages. But prosecutors decided against pursuing a criminal case against the couple.

Dara Clarke, who filed a successful appeal to get her arrest record expunged from public records, fired back with her own lawsuit, filed Thursday in Miami-Dade Circuit Court against the developers of Privé, the police officers who arrested her, and the City of Aventura.

Clarke’s suit charges the developers of Privé with malicious prosecution, negligent reporting to police, and defamation for comments  to news media. She also alleges that the police officers used excessive force in arresting her.

The developers recently topped off one of the two 16-story condo buildings that will comprise the Privé project, and they  say they have amassed $300 million in sales so far. Unit prices start at $2.1 million.

Attorneys for the city and the developers dismissed Clarke’s lawsuit as frivolous.

Several other owners of homes near the Privé site have a pending lawsuit against the developers to stop the half-built development. The suit claims the development violates an agreement that limited developer Gary Cohen to the construction of single-family homes at the site.

Susan Raffanello, an attorney for the homeowners, told the Miami Herald their lawsuit could force the developers to demolish what they have built if they started construction “knowing there was a challenge to his [Cohen’s] right to build multi-family housing.” [Miami Herald] — Mike Seemuth  

An unfinished home at Estates at Boynton Waters (Credit: Sun-Sentinel)

Palm Beach County took action to ensure that home builder John B. Kennelly finishes construction of 11 half-built homes at a residential development called The Estates of Boynton Waters.

In May, the Palm Beach County Construction Board of Adjustments and Appeals gave Kennelly until 2018 to finish the 11 homes, but he has made little progress since then.

The board on Thursday gave Kennelly’s company Estates of Boynton Waters West Corp. 30 days to post no-trespassing signs and put chain link fences around the 11 partially built homes, which the county has deemed structurally unsafe. If Kennelly fails to meet that deadline, the county may demolish the 11 homes.

Kennelly also has six months to obtain active building permit for all 11 homes. He has an active permit for just one of the homes.

Estates at Boynton Waters, located west of Boynton Beach, about 100 home owners and 140 lots. These include the lots with 11 half-built homes deemed structurally unsafe, other lots with unfinished homes and vacant lots.

Kennelly, 89, has said the housing market crash that began in 2006 caused him to lose $50 million from canceled sales contracts and forced him to stop construction work at Estates at Boynton Waters.

He told the Sun-Sentinel that the 11 half-built homes there will “absolutely be finished” by the county-imposed deadline in 2018. [Sun-Sentinel] — Mike Seemuth  

The CDC travel advisory for the Zika zone in Miami Beach will be 45 days old on Monday.

The Centers for Disease Control will indefinitely retain its travel advisory warning pregnant women to avoid the Zika zone in Miami Beach.

The CDC’s decision to retain the Zika-based advisory may extend it into the time slot of Art Basel, the annual art show that attracts visitors from around the world to Miami Beach, scheduled December 1-4 this year.

The travel advisory will be 45 days old on Monday. The CDC has lifted such advisories after 45 days if transmission of the mosquito-borne Zika virus appears to have abated.

Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine learned Friday in an email from CDC Director Tom Frieden that the travel advisory for the city would remain in effect after two new Zika cases emerged in Miami Beach on October 8 and October 17.

The Florida Department of Health reported the new Zika cases on Friday. It was unclear if the new cases were the direct cause of the CDC’s decision to retain the travel advisory for Miami Beach.

Levine told the Miami Herald he would have preferred earlier notice from the state health department so he could inform hotels and other businesses in South Beach sooner. [Miami Herald] — Mike Seemuth        

5976 Okeechobee Boulevard (Source: Palm Beach Daily News)

Automotive retailer CarMax offered the Town of Palm Beach $16 million for 28.5 unincorporated acres on Okeechobee Boulevard west of Florida’s Turnpike.

Palm Beach bought the 28.5-acre site for $10 in 1938, according to the town’s mayor, Gail Coniglio. Most of the site serves as a landfill. A Fraternal Order of Police lodge is located on the west side of the rectangular lot.

The $16 million offer by CarMax, the nation’s leading seller of used cars, led the town council of Palm Beach to order an appraisal for the land and to suspend efforts to sell a portion of it.

In August, the town council listed for sale a 5.9-acre section of the 28.5-acre site, located at 5976 Okeechobee Boulevard.

An appraisal put the value of the 5.9-acre section fronting Okeechobee Boulevard at $3.8 million, but no current appraisal of the entire 28.5 acres exists. [Palm Beach Daily News] — Mike Seemuth