Bjarke Ingels and a rendering of the what could be the world’s first hyperloop

From the New York site: Bjarke Ingels, the starchitect behind the Durst Organization’s 57th Street pyramid and designs that were floated for 2 World Trade Center, may have caught his most cutting-edge assignment yet.

Ingels’ firm BIG has been tapped to partner with Hyperloop One, a U.S. company looking to build the world’s first hyperloop, on a feasibility study that could lead to the construction of the ultra-fast train in Dubai.

The hyperloop would move at extremely high speeds

The hyperloop is a train that moves through a tube kept at a thousandth of the normal atmospheric pressure. The technology eliminates air resistance, which is one of the biggest obstacles to traveling at high speeds. The new train would take passengers from downtown Dubai to downtown Abu Dhabi in just 12 minutes, a trip that normally takes two hours.

“We don’t sell cars, boats, trains, or planes. We sell time,” said Hyperloop One’s president of engineering Josh Geigel.

BIG is designing all the hyperloop spaces for a feasibility study

The project is based on the ideas of billionaire Tesla founder Elon Musk, who has long been a champion of the hyperloop.

As part of the feasibility study commission by the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority, BIG will design the portals that move passengers and the pods.

The hyperloop would transport people from downtown Dubai to downtown Abu Dhabi

“With Hyperloop, city planning can happen far from the city centers as physical distances are virtually eliminated,” BIG Partner Jakob Lange said. “And we are not waiting for new technology to realize it. We have everything we need.” — Katherine Clarke

The island residence on Sunset Isle I that Enrique Iglesias once called home (Credit: Curbed Miami)

The founder of Pompano Beach-based PetMed Express put the Miami Beach residence he bought from recording artist Enrique Iglesias back on the market with a lower asking price.

Marc Puelo listed the home for sale with One Sotheby’s International Realty for $21.5 million after another realty firm failed to find a buyer last year, when the asking price started at $24.95 million and went lower before Puelo pulled the property off the market.

Public records show that Puelo, an anesthesiologist who founded PetMed in 1996, bought the five-bedroom home on Sunset Isle I in Miami Beach from Iglesias in 2004 for $7.85 million.

PetMed is a publicly traded pet-medication delivery service listed on the NASDAQ market under ticker symbol PETS.

Puelo’s bright yellow property occupies a lot measuring about half of an acre and features 150 feet of frontage on Biscayne Bay with views of downtown Miami. A full palette of colors light up the property’s exterior at night.

The Wall Street Journal also reported that the Latin pop star’s former residence comes with a guest house, an outdoor kitchen with a cover, a swimming pool that overlooks the bay, and a private dock.

Puelo told the Journal he has spent more than $4 million on improvements to the property, which spans about 6,700 square feet.

One Sotheby’s International agent Mirce Curkoski, who shares the listing for the residence with colleague Albert Justo, told the Journal the luxury home market has slowed since the Puelo initially put it on the market in 2015. [Wall Street Journal] — Mike Seemuth            

The state Supreme Court ruled in a 10-year-old foreclosure case.

The Florida Supreme Court ruled that mortgage lenders can restart a suspended foreclosure at any time instead of within five years after a borrower defaults.

The court ruled that the five-year statute of limitations for foreclosure cases is dynamic, not static, resetting each month a mortgage borrower remains in default.

Michele Stocker, an attorney in Fort Lauderdale who represents mortgage lenders, told the Tampa Bay Times the state Supreme Court’s decision “effectively removes the unfair notion that people can live in a home for free after an extended period of time. It could help clear out the backlog of cases that have been sitting around for a while.”

The ruling arose from the 10-year-old case of Lewis Bartram, who defaulted on a $650,000 loan secured by a home in Ponte Vedra Beach.

U.S. Bank began foreclosure proceedings against Bartram in 2006, but the case languished because the bank’s law firm, a foreclosure mill headed by attorney David Stern, went out of business.

Bartram got a court to dismiss the foreclosure case in 2011 because his attorneys argued that the five-year statute of limitations prevented U.S. Bank from completing the foreclosure it started in 2006.

But U.S. Bank appealed that decision, and in 2014, the state’s Fifth District Court of Appeal ruled in favor of the lender, which led Bartram’s unsuccessful appeal to the Florida Supreme Court.

Estimates of the value of the state Supreme Court’s ruling to lenders range as high as $400 million of debt secured by Florida real estate. [Tampa Bay Times] — Mike Seemuth

Essex House, 537 South Sequoia Drive, West Palm Beach (Source Realtor.com)

Commercial real estate brokerage Marcus & Millichap announced the sale of a 156-unit apartment complex in West Palm Beach for $15.6 million, about 50 percent more than its sale price last year.

The apartment property, called Essex House, is located on a 3.8-acre site at 537 South Sequoia Drive in West Palm Beach, one mile west of the interchange of Okeechobee Boulevard and Interstate 95.

Essex House, built in 1971 and 1974, features a community clubhouse and two gated swimming pools.

Brandon J. Rex and Evan P. Kristol, each a senior vice president investments in the Fort Lauderdale office of Marcus & Millichap, represented the seller. The brokerage firm identified neither the seller nor the buyer.

“The property is surrounded by an extraordinary concentration of nearly seven million square feet of retail and commercial space, providing residents with unparalleled convenience,” Rex said in a written statement.

An affiliate of Harvest Holdings, a Delray Beach-based company, bought Essex House in 2015 for $10 million.

Mike Davis, executive director, Cushman & Wakefield Capital Markets

A three-man team at brokerage firm Cushman & Wakefield handled $230 million in commercial property sales in Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Miami and Orlando last week.

Mike Davis, executive director of Cushman & Wakefield’s capital markets group, handled the sales together with two senior directors, Rick Brugge and Michael Lerner.

The seven properties sold include distribution facilities in Miami and Weston.

Mississippi-based EastGroup Properties acquired a 134,000-square-foot warehouse at 1951 North Commerce Parkway in Weston from Minnesota-based Founders Properties. Cushman & Wakefield did not disclose the price.

As previously announced, Miami-based Equitable Real Estate Partners paid $17.5 million, or $44 per square foot, for Airport East Distribution Center, a three-building complex in Miami spanning 397,585 square feet at 7000 Northwest 32 Avenue.

Cushman & Wakefield also helped West Palm Beach-based McCraney Property Company sell 108,432 square feet of distribution and warehouse space in Central Florida at a development called Orlando Central Park for $9.3 million to Laguna Niguel, California-based Avistone.

Rendering of Kirkman Point II office development in Orlando

Coral Gables-based Megastron Development LLC broke ground for the second phase of a speculative office development on International Drive in Orlando.

Megastron has started construction of a 134,000-square-foot office building called Kirkman Point II without tenant leases in hand. Estimates of the cost of the construction project range from $20 million to $25 million.

Megastron expects to finish construction and open the four-story office building by the fourth quarter of 2017. The leasing agents for Kirkman Point II are Jay Dixon an Tom Rich of CBRE Inc. in Orlando.

Megastron in 2011 finished the first phase of the Kirkman Point office development at the intersection of Kirkman Road and International Drive in the Orlando area’s tourism district.

The first phase, also a spec office development, unfolded during the recession in the late 2000s. Now the first-phase office building, called Kirkman Point, is fully leased. Walt Disney Parks & Resorts occupies the top three floors.

When the second phase of the office property is finished, the two-building Kirkman Point development will span more than 600,000 square feet. [Orlando Business Journal] —  Mike Seemuth

President-elect Donald Trump and his Fifth Avenue penthouse

From the New York site: President-elect Donald Trump would like to spend as much time as possible at Trump Tower even after he moves into the White House.

The real estate developer has been asking aides how many nights he will need to spend in Washington and whether he’ll be able to fly back on weekends to New York, or spend them at his Bedminster, N.J. home or his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach,  the New York Times reported.

During the campaign, Trump often chose to fly through the night in order to sleep in his familiar Fifth Avenue penthouse instead of at a local hotel. He’s lived in the Louis XIV-style, 24-karat gold and marble apartment for more than three decades.

Aides are reportedly hoping that he’ll change his mind once he’s settled at the White House and less overwhelmed by the dramatic shift in his life. [NYT] — Katherine Clarke

Enterprise Mill

Coral Gables-based Enterprise Mill LLC bought a historic landmark in Augusta, Georgia, that is now a mixed-use complex of offices and apartments.

The Fort Lauderdale office of Avison Young, which marketed the property with an asking price of $15 million, brokered the sale for an undisclosed price.

The property, a red-brick landmark called Enterprise Mill, occupies nine acres site next to a canal. It operated as a textile mill from the 1870s until it closed in 1983.

The building now has about 119,000 square feet of office space and 60 loft-style apartments. Augusta businessman Clay Boardman purchased and renovated the Enterprise Mill during the late 1990s, then sold it to the Melavar family of Savannah, Georgia, in 2006 for $13.1 million.

The Melavar family sold the mixed-use property to Enterprise Mill LLC in Coral Gables, a joint venture of the families of Carlos Imery and Starr Porter, daughter of Edward and Anna Porter, who founded Miami International University of Art and Design in Miami.

Imery told The Augusta Chronicle that his joint venture plans to bring more retailers to Enterprise Mill but plans no major changes to the property, where about 95 percent of the office space and 57 of the apartments are occupied. [The Augusta Chronicle] – Mike Seemuth

Harbor Beach Inn, 1147 Seabreeze Boulevard, Fort Lauderdale

Real estate brokerage firm Compass announced the sale of Harbor Beach Inn in Fort Lauderdale’s beach area for an undisclosed price.

Compass agent Charle Celesia arranged the sale of the small lodging property at 1147 Seabreeze Boulevard, which anticipates high-season rates starting at $140 a night.

“Our investor, an international hotelier, hopes to continue expanding his passion for hospitality in the Fort Lauderdale market,” Celesia said in a prepared statement.

Celesia also recently arranged the sale of a nearby property, the Blarney Castle Motel at 2086 Harbor Drive.

The 20-room Blarney Castle sold for $3 million, one of several small lodging properties in Fort Lauderdale’s beach area that have changed hands this year.

In March, for example, the 40-room Sea Breeze Plaza at 3081 Harbor Drive sold for $5.75 million, and in February, the 23-room Drift Hotel at 3005-07 Alhambra Street sold for $3.3 million.

Ludwig’s ‘platanen-kubus’ project in Germany (credit: ludwig.schönle)

From the New York site: In New York, developers frequently grapple over whether to build in glass and steel or in more classical brick and stone materials.

For German architect Ferdinand Ludwig, there’s a more natural solution. Ludwig is pioneering a new style of architecture known as Baubotanik, or Living Plant Constructions, born out of the ancient art of tree shaping, Arch Daily reported.

As Ludwig’s trees grow around metal scaffolding, their limbs rub against each other, causing the bark to fall away and exposing the inner tissue of the tree. That allows the vascular systems of the trees to amalgamate and become one giant stronger organism. Some of the metal is eventually removed once the joints of the trees fuse.

The practice takes patience. Ludwig’s largest project, known as platanen-kubus in Germany, won’t be complete until 2028, according to Design Boom. It comprises 1,000 plane trees over a steel framework.

“We developed solutions to adapt to climate change in Stuttgart by using the potential of Baubotanik,” Ludwig said. “This seems very interesting and urgent and we hope that we can contribute to this topic in the future.” [Arch Daily] + [Design Boom] — Katherine Clarke

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Little Haiti

Little Haiti, a neighborhood covering 3.5 square miles bordering the Design District to the south and the MiMo District to the east, has played a major role in Miami’s rich cultural history. Within its boundaries are Lemon City and Little River, a pair of historic enclaves that helped shape the city in the early 1900s.

Named after sweet lemon trees native to the area, Lemon City predates Miami’s incorporation in 1896. At the time, 300 people resided in Lemon City where the city’s pioneers created a 15-building mini-metropolis that had three general stores, a barber shop, a livery stable, a blacksmith, a sawmill and a handful of saloons. At the start of the 20th Century, development spread to Little River, where the Archdiocese of Miami built its “mother church,” the Cathedral of St. Mary in 1929. Today, the church is a reflection of Little River’s diversity with mass services held in English, Spanish and Haitian Creole. The same year St. Mary was completed, milk mogul James Neville McArthur built the processing and distribution plant for his company, McArthur Dairy, which remains in operation today.

The 1970s and 1980s brought in waves of Haitian immigrants fleeing poverty and oppression under the rule of dictators Francois Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude Duvalier. More than 150,000 asylum seekers flooded Miami with many of them settling in Lemon City and Little River, as well as areas connecting the two communities. Haitian activist and artist Viter Juste is credited with giving the area its Little Haiti moniker after his fellow countrymen established small businesses serving Haitian goods and services.

Peter Ehrlich

By the late 1990s, real estate investors like Peter Ehrlich began scouting Lemon City and Little River for deals as land prices and rents skyrocketed in South Beach. “Rents had gone up from 300 percent to 1,000 percent,” Ehrlich told The Real Deal. “It was becoming more difficult for mom and pop stores to get established on the beach. I found Lemon City had the potential to attract them because it is conveniently located to Biscayne Boulevard.”

Ehrlich said he controls about 120,000 square feet of commercial space in Lemon City and Little River. One of the businesses he lured away from South Beach is Aperture Studios Miami, a professional photography studio that has been in business for more than 20 years. “We have 10 artists leasing space inside a beautiful 5,000 square foot gallery,” Ehrlich said. “And we have some Design District retailers that lease warehouses from us for storage.”

Signs of Change

In 2014, the owners of Wynwood hipster cafe Panther Coffee announced it was converting a 3,000-square-foot warehouse space in Little Haiti into a combination roaster, training facility and coffee shop. Located inside the former Cecibon Pikliz bakery on the corner of Northwest 59th Terrace and Second Avenue, Panther Coffee’s new hub signaled the beginning of major development wave in the neighborhood.

Last year, during a real estate panel hosted by Bisnow, Panther Coffee owner Leticia Pollack hailed the move to Little Haiti as a smart one. “We’re going to be able to expand our wholesale operation and have our education lab,” she said. “We’re excited to be in a new, happening neighborhood again.”

Robert Zangrillo

In another sign of surging interest in Little Haiti, Miami Beach real estate investor Robert Zangrillo paid $15 million for a five-property portfolio in Lemon City in August 2014. The deal included the 6.5-acre Magic City Trailer Park at 6001 Northeast Second Avenue and a mixed-use building at 6041 Northeast Second Avenue that dates back to 1902.

A year later, a California company called API OS Holdings LLC plunked down $6.2 million for a former 178,810-square-foot Bank of America building at 7924 Northeast Second Avenue. The owner has yet to disclose plans for the property, but the previous owner had contemplated building a 110-unit affordable housing project.

Interest in Little Haiti commercial space has caused lease rates to grow by 100 percent or more, Ehrlich said. “When we started in 1998, rents were $2 to $3 a square foot,” he said. “Rents are now at $10 to $30 a foot. However, it’s still considerably less than what people pay in Wynwood and MiMo.”

Transportation

In addition to various public bus routes that run north to south on main arteries like Biscayne Boulevard, Northeast Second Avenue and North Miami Avenue, Miami-Dade Transit also offers the Little Haiti Connection, a small bus that circulates through the neighborhood.

Most expensive residential sale

29 Northeast 48th Street, three bedroom, three-and-a-half bathroom, 1,940 square-foot single family home sold for $660,000 on Sept. 7.

Commercial broker’s take

“There are a lot of different types of commercial development going on that is attracting artists and other creatives leaving pricier areas like Wynwood, the Design District and South Beach. We have seen quite a bit of changes happening recently,” Tony Cho, Metro 1 Properties

Demographic changes from 2000 to 2015

Population: 33,382 up 6.7% from 2010 and up 9.3% from 2000

Median age: 34

Median income: $47,127

Average household net worth: $299,334

Price trends

Median sales price per square foot: $137, 3.9 percent lower compared to the rest of Miami-Dade County

Increase in average rent over the last year: 15% to $1,476

Most expensive home on the market

201 Northeast 43rd Street, two bedroom, two bathroom 1,739 square-foot single family home for $1.3 million

Least expensive home on the market

Apartment 14, 60 Northwest 76th Street, one bedroom, one bathroom 540 square-foot condo for $65,000

New Development

Over the summer, Cho Dragon’s Magic City Properties, a company controlled by Zangrillo and Metro 1’s Cho, approached Miami city officials about the possibility of developing a special area plan for the assemblage that includes the Magic City Trailer Park at 6001 Northeast second Avenue. Cho told TRD the project, Magic City, straddles Lemon City and Little River.

“Right now it is just an assemblage of different properties that we are renovating and repurposing to cater to the needs of creative and technology businesses,” Cho said. “We’re activating and creating a sense of place. We’re hoping to create an innovation district there.”

Tony Cho

Still, Cho said Little Haiti is not ready for large-scale residential development. “It’s not quite there,” he said. “As the neighborhood evolves and people are looking for that smaller, affordable millennial format, Little Haiti can address that need.”

More recently, Conway Commercial Real Estate and Urban Atlantic Group put the finishing touches on MADE at the Citadel, a co-working space at 8325 Northeast Second Avenue. The developers paid $1.7 million in 2014 for the MiMo style building that once housed the former Bellsouth headquarters. The group spent another $1 million ripping out two layers of tile to uncover terrazzo flooring, tearing down walls, scrapping a dropped ceiling, adding new air conditioning, wiring and other renovations.

For $100 a month, a tenant gets a seat in an open space. Another $1,400 a month is enough for an office. Spaces run from 90 square feet to nearly 1,000 square feet and tenants get access to Internet, coffee, water, tea, a kitchen with a refrigerator and microwave, as well as access to all the common areas.

In June, Miami’s planning and zoning board paved the way for the first restaurant with a full-service bar in Little River. Steve Livigni and Pablo Moix and their partners are opening a craft cocktail lounge and bar called Apollo Motors within a former car repair shop at 7220 North Miami Avenue that is owned by Avra Jain and Matthew Vander Werff, who have turned their attention to Little Haiti following Jain’s renovations of motel properties in the Miami Modern Biscayne Boulevard Historic District, including the Vagabond Hotel.

Jain and Vander Werff want to transform a 20-block area located roughly between Northwest 71t Street, Northwest 75th Street, North Miami Avenue, and Northwest Second Avenue. They have brought in tenants like Fountainhead artist studios, the mega-training gym Fast Twitch, Classic Motor Car Company, Barkhaus pet-boarding, and a studio for fashion designer Fabrice Tardieu.

Last week, Jain and another real estate partner, Joe Del Vecchio, sold a gutted building  at 7924 Northeast Second Avenue for $10 million to New York investors who are planning a live/work office development.

UPDATED Nov. 14 1:46 p.m.: When an email blast isn’t enough to create buzz for your $25.5 million listing, something a little more extravagant might just do the trick.

EWM International Realty and Christie’s International Realty recently hosted a “grand reveal” for the newly finished spec house at 6466 North Bay Road, one of two built by Palos Developments that are now up for grabs at $25.5 million.

The party was dual purpose for the hosts: brokers and their clients toured the home and were also given a preview of 18 “carefully curated” pieces of art, on loan from a private collection called Cuba Moderna that’s set to be auctioned by Christie’s in New York later this month.

EWM’s Esther Percal is the listing agent for 6466 North Bay Road, which boasts 11,500 square feet of interior space as well as seven bedrooms, eight full bathrooms, two half baths, a large pool deck and 100 feet of water frontage.

The ultra-modern home was built by Bart Reines Construction and features interior finishes from Argent Design. It’s being marketed as “turn key” with an ask of $2,217 per square foot. — Sean Stewart-Muniz and Katherine Kallergis

Correction: A previous headline for this story incorrectly stated the home was in Coral Gables. It is in fact in Miami Beach. 

On Jan. 20, 2017, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, but he has some loose ends to tie up before then. According to the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, members of Congress must remove themselves from government dealings that might affect their personal financial interests. Presidents, however, were made exempt from those rules due to the complexities of the job.

Trump has so far decided to eschew the precedent of placing his holdings into a blind trust, choosing instead to pass his business on to his children. This leaves the president-elect in the sticky situation of heading for the White House with a number of business interests that have the potential to interfere with his governance.

To see the full story and some examples of Trump’s possible conflicts of interest, watch the video above.

For more videos, visit The Real Deal’s YouTube page.

The overwhelming dollar volume of large U.S. commercial sale transactions took place in states where the losing presidential candidate — Hillary Clinton, a Democrat — was the victor.

Over the past two years, $107 billion, which comprises more than 90 percent of the $117 billion in sales transactions of $200 million and up, were in states that she won, according to an analysis by The Real Deal of Real Capital Analytics data. Conversely, there were only $10 billion in sales in the state the GOP candidate — and now President-elect — Donald Trump won.

The figures highlight the enormous concentration of real estate value in large metropolitan areas and states that tend to be heavily Democrat.

Aerial of Miami Beach and the Venetian Causeway (Credit: Daniel Piraino) and Ron Shuffield

No two words sound more onerous to wealthy home sellers than “price reduction.”

But with Miami more than a year deep into a housing market slowdown that’s seen sales tumble and listings linger, EWM International Realty CEO Ron Shuffield is urging luxury homeowners to face reality.

Shuffield told The Real Deal his firm has been keeping a closer eye on the luxury market since August 2015, when inventory in the $1 million-and-up price bracket began piling up amid fewer sales.

That trend culminated this year when a “perfect storm,” brewed by the bitter U.S. presidential race and Hurricane Matthew, caused Miami to suffer its worst October for luxe home sales since 2011. Only 94 houses and condos priced above $1 million sold last month, marking a drop-off of more than a third from the 145 sold in 2015.

While those forces may have been temporary, Shuffield said, sellers shouldn’t expect buyers to flock back to Miami.

The market is still contending with an inventory of 4,100 luxury homes listed for sale across Miami-Dade County. A healthy luxury market can contend with up to 18 months of supply, he said, but Miami is now grappling with nearly three years worth of inventory. That means buyers are more inclined to sit on the sidelines and shop around for deals.

“When you have inventory growing to that level and sales falling off, the major motivator to buyers is going to be an adjustment in price,” he said.

Many homeowners in Miami are already taking the hint. By the beginning of July, 37 percent of the city’s luxury listings had seen their asking prices cut by an average of 14 percent, according to EWM’s data. Shuffield said there’s still plenty of room for that number to grow before the supply buildup is reduced to a more manageable level.

Even homes owned by some of the city’s wealthiest denizens haven’t been immune from the chopping block.

Bollywood actress and businesswoman Poonam Khubani sliced roughly $1.5 million off the ask for her tri-level penthouse at the Miami Beach EDITION last month. Hedge funder Bruce McMahan shaved $4 million from his listing for an oceanfront condo on Fisher Island last week. Auto magnate Alan Potamkin has twice dropped the ask for his Coral Gables estate, most recently by $1.5 million. And Peter Fine recently cut $1.5 million off 158 Palm Avenue, a chunk of developable he once eyed for a modern mansion.

“It’s our astute sellers that are making sales today,” Shuffied said. “We’ve even told people that if they’re not interested in selling right now, it’d be better to take their properties off the market.”

Shore Club and renderings (Credit: VisualHouse)

Owners of older buildings in Miami Beach that significantly reduce the density of their properties could no longer have to pay city impact fees for off-street parking.

At their regular meeting last week, Miami Beach city commissioners, with a 5-2 vote, gave preliminary approval to the measure that greatly benefits historic hotels such as the Shore Club that don’t have onsite parking for guests.

City officials who support the legislation say it provides incentives to developers and property owners who reduce the number of units inside apartment buildings and hotels undergoing renovations. For instance, Manhattan-based HFZ Capital Group is transforming the 300-plus room Shore Club property into an 85-room hotel and 67-unit luxury condo, dubbed Fasano Residences + Hotel Miami Beach, slicing the number of units nearly in half.

The owner of a building that is required to have 100 parking spaces can have 50 spaces and then pay the city impact fees to not provide the other half, explained Miami Beach planning and zoning manager Michael Belush. However, if the owner renovates the building and reduces the units so that only 50 spaces are required, then fees for the other half are eliminated, he told commissioners.

“I’m very comfortable with it,” said Commissioner Joy Malakoff during the meeting. “It is actually incentivizing the reduction of density. [The fee] still has to be paid if more parking spaces are removed than units are reduced.”

Neisen Kasdin, an attorney and managing partner at Akerman representing HFZ, confirmed to commissioners that eliminating off-street parking impact fees would be a benefit for his client and owners of other Miami Beach buildings that have little to no onsite parking.

“As the ordinance stands today there is a penalty which prevents you from reducing the density,” he said. “What has happened in this city, the better properties are actually reducing density… reducing parking demand. To the extent the reduction cannot be completely accounted for, then you get to pay an impact fee.”

However, commissioners Kristen Rosen Gonzalez and Micky Steinberg warned their colleagues that they were leaving untold millions of dollars in impact fees.

“All those funds would go toward transit,” Rosen Gonzalez said. “We budgeted $36 million for transit and now we are going to eliminate what could potentially be millions of dollars in fees.”

Rosen Gonzalez also questioned city staff’s conclusion that the legislation would not have a negative economic impact. “We don’t know how many buildings this is going to affect,” she said. “We don’t know how many potential impact fees could be lost by the city.”

The commissioner argued a reduction in units doesn’t necessarily mean a building would need less parking spaces. “You could have potentially bigger units and people who own those units could have more money and could have more cars,” Rosen Gonzalez said. “I have friends who own luxury condos and they have two to three cars. We just don’t know.”

Steinberg said she was concerned with creating blanket legislation as opposed to eliminating impact fees on a case by case basis. “We don’t understand the financial implications,” Steinberg said.

One Thousand Museum rendering and Zaha Hadid

From the New York website: The late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid, whose curving, fluid designs pushed the limits of building shapes, topped architecture and design magazine Dezeen’s 2016 list of the most talked-about design figures in the world.

The list was compiled through a survey of audience data and also included Bjarke Ingels, Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, and Peter Zumthor.

“The sad passing of Zaha Hadid was the most talked-about topic in architecture and design over the past 12 months, helping to secure the late architect top position on both the Architecture Hot List and the overall list,” Dezeen said.

Hadid died suddenly from a heart attack in Miami in March. Her most notable projects included the MAXXI: Italian National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome and the London Aquatics Center built for the 2012 Olympic Games.

In Miami, she designed One Thousand Museum, an 83-unit, 62-story condo tower that is under construction. The building, developed by Louis Birdman, Gregg Covin and the Regalia Group, is expected to open in late 2018.I

In New York, the finishing touches are being put on a Hadid-designed property developed by the Related Companies at 520 West 28th Street. The spaceship-like condo is directly adjacent to the High Line.

Japanese architects and designers, including the likes of architect Kengo Kuma, accounted for five of the Dezeen list’s top 20 spots. [Dezeen] — Katherine Clarke

From the New York website: Potential changes to banking regulations and rising interest rates under a Trump presidency could upend the mortgage market in the United States.

The course of the housing recovery, the availability of credit to borrowers and the amount of risk that lenders are willing to take on could all be affected by any changes to regulations and interest rates, the Wall Street Journal reported. The structure of the mortgage market — in which banks currently favor standard and jumbo loans, but nontraditional lenders offer riskier debt — could also be affected.

While Trump does not officially become commander-in-chief until Jan. 20, markets have already reacted to his upcoming presidency. Bond yields and mortgage rates have risen rapidly since the election. In the two days following Trump’s victory, the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate conforming mortgage rose a quarter of a percentage point to 3.87 percent, according to the paper. Lenders are now worried that mortgages may become more expensive sooner than was expected.

“The ultimate problem is the impact of rising rates on home values,” Stu Feldstein, the president at mortgage-research firm SMR Research Corporation, told the Journal. “We’re back into a bubble condition in part because of low rates that have enabled people to buy houses much more expensive than their incomes could afford.”

Lenders are also watching closely to see if more “bank-friendly” regulations lie ahead. On Friday, Trump pledged to dismantle or greatly reduce the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law. According to the New York Times, Trump has surrounded himself with advisors that are critical of the Federal Reserve, and support reining the central bank’s power and influence. [WSJ] — Miriam Hall

The InTown apartments

In one of Little Havana’s most expensive commercial deals in recent history, Greystar just paid $89 million for the Astor Companies’ newly built InTown apartment complex.

The sale reflects a slowing market for a project that was originally slated to be built as a condominium but failed to drum up enough sales. It also gives further credence to the trend of national investors favoring South Florida rental properties.

Greystar’s purchase covers a pair of 15-story rental towers at 1900 Southwest Eighth Street in Miami that together house 312 units. The price breaks down to $285,256 per apartment.

At $89 million, the deal easily blows past the neighborhood’s most recent apartment sales, which topped out at the $13.6 million purchase of a 63-unit building in December, according to data from Real Capital Analytics.

Commercial brokerage HFF, which represented Astor, announced the off-market sale Monday. The deal marks an unusual twist for InTown, which was originally planned to be developed as condominiums with prices between $190,000 and $300,000. The developer had targeted investors and young professionals who couldn’t afford to live in more expensive neighborhoods like Brickell, but still wanted a home nearby.

Sales for the project launched in January 2014, but Astor CEO Henry Torres told The Real Deal that only 37 percent of the units had been reserved by fall this year.

“Unfortunately, we didn’t get to the point where we thought it was a success,” he said. “We gave everybody back their deposits plus interest, and we moved on as a rental project because it made more sense at the time.”

Astor is not alone: some of South Florida’s most high-profile developers have shifted gears in the past 12 months, either canceling, pausing or redesigning condo projects in the face of a slowing residential market.

It didn’t take long for Torres’ strategy to attract interest. Greystar approached Astor in January looking to buy the apartments, Torres said, and the two companies signed a contract in February. InTown’s rebirth as a rental complex was formalized in March when Astor’s holding company terminated its declaration of condominium with the county.

Rents at the project range from $1,600 for a one-bedroom apartment to $2,700 for three bedrooms. Amenities include a fourth-floor amenity deck featuring a swimming pool, a coffee bar, club room, fitness center, yoga room and business center.

A request for comment from Greystar was not immediately returned. The South Carolina-based apartment owner financed its purchase with a loan from Florida Community Bank, though it’s not immediately clear how much debt was placed. The deal has not yet cleared county records.

South Florida’s multifamily market has attracted a slew of investors recently, with $4 billion worth of rental properties trading during this year’s first half alone. HFF Managing Director Jaret Turkell, who represented Astor along with Maurice Habif, said apartment properties’ stability make them attractive options to both international buyers and institutional firms stateside like pension fund advisors.