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Super Bowl Descends on Miami and Its Changing Skyline

Author: Admin
Categories: Allapattah,Commercial News,Development,Wynwood

The last time the Super Bowl came to Miami, the football stadium on the edge of the Everglades and just off the turnpike was surrounded by asphalt and dirt parking lots.

Miami-Dade County had 20% fewer apartments and 23% fewer available hotel rooms during the championship game in 2010, when Airbnb and ride-hailing companies such as Uber were in their infancy. Brightline, the commuter train service renamed Virgin Trains USA that connects Miami with West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, didn’t exist. All those factors are expected to play major roles this weekend as Miami hosts the Super Bowl for a record 11th time, attracting more than 200,000 people to a region with a skyline that has changed dramatically.

“If you were here 10 years ago and came back, you’ll find that this city is completely different,” Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez said.

North of downtown, once-distressed neighborhoods such as Allapattah and Little Haiti are attracting new development that appeals to millennials who want to live close to where they work. One of the trendiest areas of Miami is Wynwood, a former industrial and garment district now drawing offices, retail and residential. Tour buses regularly pass through Wynwood, allowing visitors to snap selfies among the spray-painted graffiti that adorns many of the buildings in the rollicking arts district.

“Miami has become more of an urban place where people live and play now,” said Rodney Barreto, chairman of the Miami Super Bowl Host Committee. “It wasn’t that 10 years ago. Heck, at 6 or 7 o’clock at night you couldn’t find anybody downtown. Now at 11 o’clock at night, people are walking their dogs.”

In the past 10 years, close to 30,000 new apartments have been built across Miami-Dade County, helping make it the U.S. capital for rentals as a percentage of inventory, according to CoStar data. The market has added 11,000 more hotel rooms, not including thousands of new beds now available through home-sharing giant Airbnb. Scores of luxury condominium towers are sprouting up in downtown Miami, including one that has an amenity deck that can be transformed into a skyport for flying cars and another with a robot concierge service.

The 65,000-seat Hard Rock Stadium is now the new home of the Miami Open tennis tournament and has attracted soccer, concerts and other events. Last year, ground was broken on a $135 million Dolphins training facility next to the stadium. And gondolas were installed that will make their debut on Super Bowl Sunday, giving fans an aerial view of the pregame festivities.

“It’s definitely a different town, and we’re going to be really proud to show it off, for sure,” Barreto said.

The Feb. 2 game at Hard Rock Stadium between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers is expected to generate an estimated economic impact in excess of $400 million. Hotels in the Miami area are projected to break all-time highs for average daily rate and revenue per available room, two industry standard measurements, according to figures from STR, a travel industry data and analytics firm owned by CoStar Group, the parent company of CoStar News.

Making the Pitch

NFL owners voted in 2016 to award South Florida this year’s Super Bowl, a game that marks the league’s 100th season. They were sold after listening to a pitch from Miami Dolphins owner and Hudson Yards developer Stephen Ross about hundreds of millions of dollars he spent to renovate the aging Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, on the edge of the Everglades northwest of downtown Miami.

At the time, the Dolphins and Barreto said the region’s bid, which topped 550 pages, included a budget of cash and incentives valued at more than $40 million. Barreto now declines to discuss specifics of the bid, saying parts of it eventually will be made public.

Miami, the nation’s seventh-largest metropolitan area, is a preferred destination for the Super Bowl because of its size and the consistently warm weather, notwithstanding the Super Bowl in 2007, but even then fans found it strangely appropriate that halftime performer Prince sang his hit song “Purple Rain” in the rain.

Meanwhile, the matchups in Miami have been among the most memorable in league history.

In the second of five Super Bowls played at the Orange Bowl in Miami, New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath famously guaranteed victory over the Baltimore Colts in 1969, a huge upset that led to the merger of the NFL and the American Football League.

Twenty years later, in a new stadium privately funded by Dolphins founding owner Joe Robbie, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana jokingly pointed out actor John Candy in the crowd to his teammates before leading them on a last-second drive to beat the Cincinnati Bengals.

A decade ago, the New Orleans Saints outlasted the now Indianapolis Colts with the help of a risky onside kick to open the second half, delivering the Big Easy’s first title, 4 1/2 years after the city was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

But not long after the Saints beat the Colts in February 2010, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell delivered a stark message to Ross and other officials hoping to schedule another Super Bowl at Hard Rock.

“The commissioner was very adamant and very loud about we would not get another Super Bowl until we made renovations,” Barreto told CoStar News.

Stadium Improvement Process

Ross first sought public money to renovate the stadium that opened in 1987, though that effort hit a political wall. In 2014, he struck a deal with Miami-Dade to pay for the upgrades himself in exchange for bonus payments to the Dolphins for hosting the Super Bowl and other events.

The phased stadium improvements brought new seats, two new concourses, new suites, four high-definition video boards and a canopy that shades 92% of the fans. The cost: more than $550 million.

Gondolas will make their debut at Hard Rock Stadium at the Super Bowl Feb. 2 in Miami. (Paul Owers/CoStar News)

Ross’ total investment at Hard Rock Stadium now tops $700 million, noted Tom Garfinkel, president and CEO of the Dolphins and member of the Miami Super Bowl Host Committee.

“It’s a testament to Steve Ross’ commitment,” Garfinkel said in an interview. “The stadium has become a global entertainment destination.”

The NFL seems impressed.

Senior Director of Event Planning Eric Finkelstein, whose crew of 6,000 workers has been in South Florida since Jan. 2 preparing for the Super Bowl, said the new canopy allows the league to introduce surprises for fans during the championship game.

“To us, it feels like a brand new building because of how much has changed,” said Finkelstein, who is overseeing his 21st Super Bowl.

NFL owners typically vote to award the game to cities with warm weather or domed stadiums. Teams that agree to build stadiums, as the Los Angeles Rams are doing, have a good chance of eventually hosting the Super Bowl. Tampa, Florida, doesn’t have a new stadium, but NFL owners voted to move the Super Bowl there in February 2021 from Inglewood, California, because of construction delays at the Los Angeles Rams’ SoFi Stadium. It will be the fifth time Tampa has hosted the game. The big game heads to SoFi Stadium in the Los Angeles area in 2022.

Local civic and business leaders insist they aren’t taking for granted the impact of the game on South Florida, no matter how many times it has been played here.

“We have the attention and the focus of the world,” Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said.

Barreto has signed paperwork to allow South Florida to compete for the Super Bowl in any year from 2025 to 2030. He was watching on television Wednesday when Goodell, speaking at his state of the league press conference, praised local officials and indicated the game likely will return to Hard Rock Stadium.

“We’re ecstatic,” Barreto said. “I believe they like Miami. We’re experienced, and we know how to work with them.”

 

Source:  CoStar

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Miami Board Votes To Repeal Special Area Plans

Author: Admin
Categories: Allapattah,Commercial News,Development,Wynwood

Special Area Plans have enabled developers to build massive projects in the city of Miami like Brickell City Centre, River Landing Shops and Residences, Mana Wynwood, the Miami Produce Center (pictured above), and Magic City Innovation District.

SAPs have also antagonized neighborhood activists who fear that such massive developments destroy the character of low-rise neighborhoods and speed up the displacement of individuals and families who can’t afford the skyrocketing rents or property taxes.

Now, the Miami Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board is recommending that no other SAPs be approved.

By a vote of 6 to 3 on Wednesday, the board approved a resolution to repeal the Special Area Plan provision that enables property owners who assemble more than 9 acres of land to seek extensive zoning changes.

Such a repeal still needs to be approved, twice, by the Miami City Commission, which is embarking on its own review of the entire Miami 21 zoning code, including SAPs.

Planning board member Adam Gersten cast one of the dissenting votes, saying he feared that commissioners may simply ignore a recommendation to repeal, and advocated for a moratorium on SAPs instead. As part of that moratorium, the board could recommend reforms, including that the SAP causes no net loss of affordable housing in the surrounding area, Gersten suggested.

Chris Collins, another dissenting voter, agreed. “I think it would be more proactive and go a longer way if we specify what we want to change and how to change it,” Collins said.

But board member Alex Dominguez said that while the city tries to “workshop this thing to death,” more people are being displaced by legislation that encourages land speculation.

“If you do a moratorium… it’s like putting lipstick on a pig, and at the end of the day, it’s still a pig,” Dominguez said.

He also argued that many real estate developers “don’t even want to touch SAPs” because of the community opposition they tend to attract.

“It’s not a big deal to repeal SAPs from Miami 21,” Dominguez said, adding that “keeping it alive and tweaking it is affecting a hell of a lot more people negatively rather than positively.”

Neisen Kasdin, a land use attorney affiliated with Akerman, rose in defense of SAPS, arguing that the legislation has enabled “good” projects like the expansion of Ransom Everglades private school in Coconut Grove and the ongoing construction of an EmpathiCare Village for Alzheimer’s patients at Miami Jewish Health Systems in Buena Vista. SAP developers must also offer “community benefit agreements” in exchange for approval, Kasdin added.

“If you pass this legislation, you are not just throwing the baby out with the bath water, you are throwing out the baby,” Kasdin said.

But Marleine Bastien, executive director of Family Action Network Movement (FANM), said one of Kasdin’s clients, Magic City Innovation District, is an example of a “bad SAP” that has already indirectly led to the displacement of several residents and small businesses. That project, which was approved by the city commission last June, is being challenged in court by Warren Perry, a Little Haiti resident affiliated with FANM. One of the project’s initial investors, Robert Zangrillo, is also fighting charges from the U.S. Attorney’s Office related to the college admission fraud scandal, as well as charges from the Federal Trade Commission that he co-owned fraudulent websites.

Leonie Hermantin, a board member of Concerned Leaders of Little Haiti, said that although her organization supported the Magic City Innovation District, the group is also in favor of repealing the SAP provision.

“We know that the impact of multiple SAPs in our community will be detrimental,” Hermantin told the board. “I agree with Mr. Kasdin. There are good SAPs and there are bad SAPs. The problem is, unfortunately, that bad SAPs have been allowed to go through.”

The board has kept one controversial SAP in limbo: Eastside Ridge, a proposed 5.4 million-square-foot project that will be built less than a mile from the 8.2-million-square foot Magic City Innovation District and across the street from Miami Jewish Health. The planning board has continued the project five times, with members demanding improvements. In response, SPV Realty, Eastside Ridge’s developers, filed a lawsuit demanding that the board make a decision on the project — either recommending for or against it — so that it can be heard by the Miami City Commission.

Board member Anthony Parrish said Eastside Ridge helped make up his mind on whether or not to support repealing SAPs.

“One attorney of a major project said, ‘Just deny us. We just want to get to the commission,’” Parrish said. “That is what provided, at least for this member of the board, a need to repeal this.”

 

Source:  The Real Deal

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Developers Push The Art Basel Crowd Toward A New Miami Neighborhood

Author: Admin
Categories: Allapattah,Commercial News,Development,Neighborhoods,Trends

Miami Art Week’s center of gravity moves every couple of years—pulled at one moment by the gritty muraled walls of Wynwood, at another by the gleaming shops of the Design District.

But during this year festivities, a new neighborhood that’s been overlooked by the artistic glitterati is seeing a flurry of activity.

Allapattah, nestled just west of Wynwood and north of Little Havana along the Miami River, is known for its Dominican community and grain warehouses. It’s now the home of two major art complexes—the 100,000-square-foot Rubell Museum that opened on Dec. 4 and the new El Espacio 23 experimental art center developed by billionaire real estate magnate Jorge Pérez to exhibit his private collection and to develop artists in residency.

The Rubell Museum, set along abandoned rail tracks, houses 40 galleries in six former industrial buildings less than a mile from the original Wynwood home outgrown by what was previously known as the Rubell Family Collection. An empty parking lot was transformed into a garden filled with rare and threatened plants native to the Everglades and Florida Keys. Inside, the vast rooms are connected with a long artery of a hallway that culminates with Keith Haring’s painting of a heart.

Works acquired by the Rubells very early in artists’ careers, including Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Still (#21) (1978) and Jeff Koons’s New Hoover Convertible (1980), feature prominently in the inaugural exposition, as does an immersive work by Yayoi Kusama called INFINITY MIRRORED ROOM — LET’S SURVIVE FOREVER (2017).

The warehouse was purchased for $4 million in April 2015, according to property records.

“Art transforms neighborhoods” says Mera Rubell, a former teacher and the matriarch of the family clan that collects art and invests in real estate. “There are always frontiers. You just have to go there.”

Just several blocks west in Allapattah, El Espacio 23 is a 28,000-square-foot arts center designed to serve artists, curators, and the general public with regular exhibitions. Its inaugural exhibit—“Time for Change: Art and Social Unrest in the Jorge M. Pérez Collection”—features more than 100 works curated by Bogota-based Jose Roca and explores themes that include identity, public unrest, and marginalized peoples.

“I could not do this in Wynwood; it would be twice the cost, at least,“ he says, noting that Allapattah was located centrally in terms of employment opportunities and industry. “Wynwood is already changed. You couldn’t be showing this,’’ he adds, sitting just a few steps from Estudiante, a David-sized statue by Spanish artist Fernando Sanchez Castillo. It depicts a student being searched and humiliated by police. “There’s just too much traffic of another type. I needed to find a place that was affordable and central.”

A Changing Neighborhood

As Allapattah emerges to attract galleries and artists, Pérez says he is aware of many of the issues that can emerge as neighborhoods change and says the area could be important for the development of affordable housing. He’ll be bidding on 18 acres the city will put up for sale; although he doesn’t say what he eventually wants to do with the area, affordable housing is on his mind.

The Rubells bought the warehouse that makes up their museum for roughly $53 per square foot five years ago. Today, asking prices for industrial warehouses in the area range from $200 to $350 per square foot, according to Diego V. Tejera, a commercial real estate consultant specializing in Allapattah.

“Now you have prices that are really high and there are no buyers willing to pay them,” he said. “All this past year very little transacted. People were waiting to see how all this pans out. With the grand openings of both of these venues, you are going to see more interest in the area.”

“The affordable rental market is extremely strong,” he explains. “If I could build any amount of rental building at rents that people can afford, they would be 100% occupied all the time. The problem is that we’re building a lot of rentals that people can’t afford because of land prices.”

Plus, Pérez acknowledges, profit plays a factor. “Developers make more money the more expensive the product they build, so there’s been a tendency to build towards the more expensive product, and I think the needs are in the lower-price product,” he explains. “We have to rebalance, and we’re doing that.”

Experts in affordable housing are wary of the addition of glamorous arts spaces to the area. “There is absolutely a cost, and the cost is people being forced out of their neighborhoods, and the sort of ethnic and cultural vibe of a neighborhood gets completely transformed,” says Robin Bachin, assistant provost for civic and community engagement at the University of Miami. “Even just looking at Allapattah, there’s been a tremendous increase in the average home value in the last five years.”

Most residents of Allapattah don’t own their homes or businesses, Bachin says, and the number of LLCs that own parcels in the area dramatically rose in the past two years.

The Effect of Higher Property Values

“It’s actually beneficial for an absentee landlord to not invest in the property, because if they think that they can actually sell the property, then the gain will be that much greater. It’s really detrimental to the residents who live there, who don’t own their property, as well as to the business owners, the mom-and-pop stores who most likely don’t own their building.

“There’s a great deal of concern of the impacts that that kind of massive development has on these working class communities of color—in the case of Little Haiti, obviously, a large Haitian-American community, and in the of Allapattah, a large Central American community,” she explains. “We know, for example, historically in cities across the country, that when art spaces, studios, and galleries move into a neighborhood because it has cheaper rent, that is a harbinger of gentrification.”

Pérez’s Related Group is involved with the redevelopment of Miami’s Liberty Square, which is the largest redevelopment of public housing in the southern United States. While his art spaces will undoubtedly make real estate in the Allapattah neighborhood pricier, Pérez says he wants to use them to confront the issue of home prices head-on.

“Housing affordability is one of the biggest issues that we have, in order for there not to be a complete displacement as neighborhoods change,” he says. “There are many things that the private sector and the public sector can do, and exhibitions like this, I hope, will make everybody think about it.”

 

Source:  Bloomberg

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Miami May Be Closer To Banning Special Area Plans

Author: Admin
Categories: Allapattah,Commercial News,Development,Neighborhoods,Wynwood

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dominguez, though, said it was best if the city rid itself of SAPs as soon as possible.

“Time is our biggest enemy. The more time we spend kicking things down the road and having meetings, the more developers are going to develop [SAPs] and we’ll have more traffic and we’ll see more people getting displaced,” he said.

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

Board chairman Charles Garavaglia agreed with Dominguez that passing a rule ending SAPs would make a stronger impact with politicians.

“I just think we should stop SAPs and send that message,” Garavaglia said, “and, ultimately, the commission will do what they want.”

 

Source:  The Real Deal

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ULI Offers Some Climate Change Solutions For Miami’s Commercial Properties Along The Waterfront

Author: Admin
Categories: Allapattah,Commercial News,Development,Miami Beach,Neighborhoods

To protect commercial properties along the waterfront in downtown Miami and by the Miami River, city officials and the real estate industry should implement natural lines of defenses, consider using less ground floor space for commercial uses, embrace transit-oriented, mixed-use projects and identify funding resources for large-scale flood mitigation projects similar to the Thames Barrier in London.

Those are some of the recommendations made by a 10-member panel of the Urban Land Institute, or ULI, brought on by the City of Miami and the Miami Downtown Development Authority to figure out ways to make the urban core more resilient to climate change.

The panel’s final report came out this month. It focuses on strengthening the Biscayne Bay waterfront as Downtown Miami’s first line of defense against rising seas, transforming the Miami River into a mixed-use district that bridges the gap between the water and surrounding neighborhoods such as Little Havana and Allapattah. The report also recommends creating incentives for responsible development along an inland ridge of high-lying ground.

“The Urban Land Institute’s preliminary findings provide us with a roadmap for enacting design, infrastructure, zoning and financing strategies that will ensure Miami sustains its growth as a world-class city – not for years, not for generations, but forever,” said Miami City Commission Chairman Ken Russel, who also chairs the Miami DDA. On Nov. 21, commissioners passed a symbolic resolution declaring Miami is an a state of climate emergency.

The ULI recommends city officials adopt living shorelines along the Miami Baywalk and Riverwalk, study the development of an iconic tidal gate for the Miami River, use the city’s transfer of development density program to give builders incentives for building in less flood-prone areas and update the downtown Miami master plan to incorporate building streets and sidewalks at a higher elevation.

According to the ULI report, commercial properties in Miami’s urban core, which includes retail storefronts, offices and large apartment buildings, comprise $21.1 billion in taxable value. Roughly $5 billion of that value exists with a quarter mile from Biscayne Bay and the Miami River.

Since 2009, a total of $13.1 billion was invested in commercial property in the Miami central business district, indicating an active market, the ULI report states. The ULI panel largely agreed that the city’s current waterfront guidelines lack overall flexibility, have some problematic design requirements, and do not allow for elements, such as terracing, that could address storm surge.

 

Source:  Forbes

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New York-Based Multifamily Investors Flock To South Florida

Author: Admin
Categories: Allapattah,Aventura,Commercial News,Miami Beach,Multifamily,Neighborhoods,Trends,Wynwood

There is a wave of investors who are currently selling their New York-based properties to invest in the South Florida area. Why?

Mainly because of the recent rent control law and its negative impact on returns on investments. It has been estimated, for example, apartment property values dropped 20%-30% as soon as the laws went into effect. Some investors are now mainly focused on getting their money out of New York and are looking to invest in properties that will produce better yields—specifically in non-regulated rent control markets, such as South Florida.

Why South Florida?

“There is zero incentive for New York multifamily investors to purchase a building and spend money on renovations if they can’t raise rents in these rent-controlled environments. Florida has always been a market with attractive yields. This is why most NY investors are choosing South Florida,” says Rafael Fermoselle, managing partner of Eleventrust Real Estate. “They either have their New York properties under contract to be sold, have already sold them, are in 1031 exchanges, or in some cases looking for diversification.”

Investors are selling their assets in New York and reinvesting in deals that yield more and ideally, are located under one roof. However, since Miami’s inventory is compressed with a lot of smaller multifamily properties and it’s difficult to find buildings with high unit counts under one roof, investors are turning to multifamily portfolios that are comprised of 4 – 8 buildings totaling 50-120 units. Although not all under one roof, investors are finding the 100+ units they are seeking with room to add value.

“Investors are working closely with Eleventrust because we have the inventory other brokerages don’t, plus, many of the deals they are transacting are happening off market, which many investors prefer,” explains Fermoselle.

Opportunity Zones

Opportunity Zones are another big reason why this new wave of investors are looking to South Florida. Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach are among the best places to invest in Opportunity Zones. There are about 123 Opportunity Zones in South Florida, including 67 in Miami-Dade, 30 in Broward and 26 in Palm Beach counties.

“Almost 16% of South Florida’s commercial assets are located in Opportunity Zones, one of the highest rates in the nation,” Fermoselle tells GlobeSt.com.

Tax Savings

New York investors looking to move to Florida also benefits from the state not having an income tax for Florida residents. New York state tax rates range from 4% to 8.82%. Additionally, the effective real estate property tax rate for Florida residents is approximately 0.98%, compared to 1.68% in New York.

New York investors will also save on capital gains tax in Florida where the top marginal tax rate on capital gains in Florida is 25% and top marginal tax rates on capital gains in New York is 33.82%.

“We currently have 4 successful deals with New York investors including multifamily properties with 9-18 units,” says Fermoselle. “We also have properties located in emerging neighborhoods that are garnering interest from east coast investors.”

 

Source: GlobeSt.

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More Than 7 Acres Up For Sale In Allapattah

Author: Admin
Categories: Allapattah,Commercial News,Development,Multifamily,Neighborhoods,Retail,Shopping Centers

More signs that Allapattah is the hot place to be: the heir to the Bill Seidle auto dealerships has put a portfolio of three tracts equaling 7.6 acres on the market. Asking price: $18.35 million.

The parcels belong to Bob Seidle — son of the late Bill Seidle — and Bob’s wife Tracy. Some are currently home to small shopping centers and parking lots. They are zoned T6-8, which means they can be redeveloped with buildings up to 8 stories tall, said listing agent Cesar Carasa of One Stop Realty. They are located in the city of Miami.

The three parcels lie south of the 112 Expressway between Wynwood and the Miami International Airport. Each of the three parcels edges NW 36th Street. The parcels are not contiguous; two of them sit on opposite sides of NW 36th Street.

One parcel includes five folios along the north side of NW 36th Street, beginning just west of NW 27th Avenue to 29th NW Avenue on the west and extends north several blocks.

The second parcel includes eight folios along the north side of NW 36th Street, beginning just west of NW 31st Avenue to NW 32nd Avenue; it extends two blocks to the north.

The third parcel includes 11 folios on the south side of NW 36th Street between NW 27th and NW 28th Avenues.

The properties were placed on the market two weeks ago and have attracted six inquiries thus far.

The central location of the parcels — a 12-minute drive to Miami International Airport and a 20-minute drive to South Beach — make them ideal for residential redevelopment, said Carasa. He said, “That section is very well located for the middle class.”

“People can’t afford to pay a lot of the rentals. Apartments in that part of town would be cheaper than other areas like Brickell,” said Carasa.

The neighborhood has attracted long-term residents.

Carasa said, “Because it’s a central location, I’ve seen people move from Homestead to here because of traffic.”

Tired of handling leases, the Seidle family decided to sell at market price of $54 to $55 a square foot. They hope to sell the three parcels for $18.35 million but are willing to consider individual sales.

The per-square-foot listing price is comparable to other area transactions, said Carlos Fausto Miranda of Fausto Commercial. But the total amount is rare, he said.

The listing price a square foot between $54 and $55 is comparable to other transactions in the area, said Carlos Fausto Miranda of Fausto Commercial, but what is unique is the amount of land offered in the portfolio.

Over the past year, the area just west of Wynwood has become Miami-Dade’s new real estate darling. The Rubell Family Art Collection has abandoned its former Wynwood space in favor of Allapattah, and art collector and developer Jorge Perez also will open a private museum this fall. Developer Robert Wennett has announced a massive residential-mixed use project in the area designed by star architect Bjarke Ingels, and developer Moishe Mana has also expanded his Allapattah holdings.

“It’s a great but underutilized neighborhood,” said Miranda. It’s one of the few east-west corridors that takes you straight from the beaches to the swamps.”

Due to increasing interest in the area, Carasa said, “For commercial properties it usually takes a year, but, for these it would take no more than two to three months to sell.”

 

Source:  Miami Herald

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Finding Opportunities In Miami’s Multifamily Market

Author: Admin
Categories: Allapattah,Commercial News,Development,Multifamily,Trends

Employment and population growth continue to fuel Miami’s multifamily market across all segments.

With more than $3 billion in originations in South Florida and 146 loans granted in 2018, Berkadia is one of the region’s largest commercial mortgage lenders.

As part of its expansion in Florida, Berkadia hired Charles Foschini as senior managing director back in 2016. In an interview with Multi-Housing News, Foschini talks about Miami’s current multifamily investment trends and how new supply will impact the market. He also shares his predictions for the metro’s multifamily landscape for the next 12 months.

Foschini: Miami’s market is incredibly vibrant, but it’s also unlike most other major metro markets in that we have so much wealth imported here from other parts of the country and flight capital from around the world. That said, there are three distinct changes we’ve seen in the past two years.

First, there’s extraordinary demand for multifamily product not only as a result of strong job and population growth but also due to the limited inventory of affordably priced single-family homes. A shortfall of homes priced at $250,000 or below has prolonged renting for many would-be first-time homebuyers and those who lost their homes during the housing market collapse of 2008. At the same time, more people across the age and income spectrum—from Millennials to retirees—are renting by choice. They like the choice amenities many new developments offer and the worry-free lifestyle of renting.

Lastly, there has been an extraordinary amount of urban infill development in this cycle, not just in Miami’s downtown, although that’s practically unrecognizable from just five years ago but also in other urban submarkets. We’ve seen an incredible amount of new multifamily development directly on or adjacent to mass transit rail lines. In a city with incredible traffic congestion, walkability is a huge draw.

Construction is expected to mark a new cycle high with more than 16,000 units delivered by year’s end, according to Yardi Matrix. How will the new supply impact the Miami market?

Foschini: The new supply will be absorbed. Demand is still incredibly strong.  More than 900 people are moving to Florida every day and our population is expected to soar to 22 million over the next three years. Absorption continues to outpace deliveries by about two to one in South Florida at large. The reality is that Miami is really a confined space, a peninsula. There are only 13 miles between the Everglades to Biscayne Bay and that’s all the land there is.

There is a need for new rental product in just about every submarket to lower the impact of the car and lessen commutes. In some areas like the Central Business District, Brickell and Miami Beach, you have all the elements of a true live-work-play environment already in place, but in emerging areas of the city that don’t have a direct tie to our rail lines, the easiest way to do that is to add high-quality residential communities near centers of employment—in submarkets like Doral or North Miami for example.

Which Miami submarkets are most attractive for investors and developers? Why?

Foschini: Miami is so dense that any area can be successful. The key is finding land at a value where you can hit your return on cost and make a profit. With that in mind, developers are finding some interesting deals in neighborhoods that are still technically in the city, but west of Interstate 95—neighborhoods like Allapatah, Opa-Locka and even Hialeah.

How is investment in the metro responding to the current economic environment?

Foschini: It’s extremely healthy—our commercial sectors are really thriving. In fact, ownership in the CBD has become increasingly institutional and the level of long-term investment in Miami from institutional and global capital is impressive. There are several high-profile, long-term infrastructure projects that are going to create new jobs and demand for housing. Absorption may slow as a result of all the new deliveries, but projects are filling up over time and most are hitting their rent and investment objectives.

What can you tell us about financing multifamily projects in Miami? How has the process changed in the past few years?

Foschini; In this cycle, lenders have maintained their discipline and seasoned developers have come to the table with more equity and more patient capital than we’ve seen in the past. That has allowed for more projects to get off the ground and have the breathing room to lease up. The market has no shortage of capital in both a recourse and non-recourse format. Banks, life companies and—on larger deals—debt funds have all stepped in to bring projects out of the ground.

As developable land in South Florida becomes scarcer, how do you see construction activity going forward? What about the cost of construction financing?

Foschin: Land is scarcer, that’s true, but there is no shortage of opportunity. As the highest and best use of land evolves, we will see more existing projects such as shopping centers and small offices come down to make way for redevelopment as multifamily. It is my belief that lenders’ spreads have been higher than in previous cycles and they were able to get away with it because the baseline indexes were so low. I believe that if the indexes trend up, competition will push spreads down and the environment, at least on the debt side, will remain favorable.

What are your overall market predictions for the next 12 months?

Foschini: Existing projects will continue to lease up and new projects that are well thought out and have well-capitalized and experienced operators, will get funded. Investment sales activity will be slower—that’s a given since a lot of product has been picked over and traded in this cycle—but there will still be activity from developers and investors who are creative and capitalize on things like access to mass transit, Opportunity Zone incentives etc. Overall, the demand from the investment community for product in Miami and South Florida as a whole will remain strong.

 

Source:  Multihousing News

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Ex-Wynwood owners brand Allapattah today’s bargain

Author: FIPCommercial
Categories: Allapattah,Commercial News

Read the full article at: Miami Today

Roland DiGasbarro was actively looking to invest in Allapattah two years before purchasing his first building there in early 2014 because it’s an important and appealing urban location like Wynwood, he said, but at a fraction of the price.

The owner of Windsor Investments, a family-owned South Florida real estate investment company, Mr. DiGasbarro said he has been very involved over the past decade in the region’s urban locations, including downtown Miami, Coral Gables and Wynwood. At the beginning of the year, however, Mr. DiGasbarro sold his last property in Wynwood, where he owned a number of buildings.

Two years after venturing into Allapattah and buying that first building for $70 a square foot, he now owns almost a dozen properties in the area, which is northwest of downtown and a few miles east of Miami International Airport. Mr. DiGasbarro said he purchased for investment reasons and believes the neighborhood has distinctive qualities.

Geographically, Allapattah makes sense and costs are substantially lower than everything surrounding it, he said. Moreover, Mr. DiGasbarro firmly believes in the area’s appeal.

As Windsor Investments acquires assets, he said, the company continues to improve and renovate them. “We’ve been able to attract a varied tenant base into the area, including artists, restaurants and manufacturers.”

The beauty about this steadily increasing interest in Allapattah, Mr. DiGasbarro said, is that “like us, other local real estate families are aggressively buying for the very long term and who have the intention of improving the area.”

William Betts, an artist who owned buildings in Wynwood, began buying property in Allapattah in 2011 to add to his portfolio. Eventually, he sold his Wynwood buildings.

“The market had peaked and it was hard for it to go up,” Mr. Betts said. He said the buildings he saw in Allapattah were high quality – spacious, in good shape and inexpensive.

“When I bought, the prices were $75-$80 a square foot, which was a great investment,” Mr. Betts said. “Now, it’s hard to find anything under $150 a square foot.”

He owns an entire block near Seventh Avenue, keeping a portion for garden space and renting the rest to automotive tenants; a few warehouses on 10th Avenue that he uses for his own storage and others that he rents to artists; and a number of buildings as investments.

“There’s a working class vibe to Allapattah and I’ve always been attracted to that,” Mr. Betts said. “There’s also a large residential component, which makes it a real community.”

Wynwood is where people come to party, he said, but Allapattah is where Miami works.

“It won’t become a restaurant and club scene but will stay true to its legacy,” Mr. Betts predicts. “More and more artists will be attracted to Allapattah because its spaces are large and it’s affordable by today’s standards.”

Creative types will fit in well with the traditional atmosphere of Allapattah, Mr. Betts said. “It’s the only area in Miami where it feels like people are working and doing things.”

Francisco De La Torre IV, director and curator of Butter Gallery, has also relocated from Wynwood to Allapattah, where he said many important real estate developers have already acquired properties and it is just a matter of time before the area is completely transformed.

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Commercial development in Allapattah is emerging from Wynwood’s shadow

Author: FIPCommercial
Categories: Allapattah,Development

Source: The Real Deal SFL

In recent months, commercial real estate interest in Allapattah has taken off. In early March, a company tied to the Rubell family purchased a 50,225-square-foot building at 1101 Northwest 23rd Street for $8.35 million. The property previously traded for $3.125 million in 2012. The same month, developer Michael Simkins picked up the McKenzie Construction warehouse for $3.58 million from Alex Karakhanian. Two years ago, Karakhanian paid $1.14 million for the site.

In 2013, an unimproved warehouse in Wynwood would go for $50-per-square-foot, Kohn said. Today, the price has leapfrogged to $120-per-square-foot, he added.

Allapattah is also unique because the neighborhood has a diverse array of commercial activity, from produce warehouses that sell to local restaurants and markets to a discount retail corridor along Northwest 20th street and industrial warehouses along the Miami River, Kohn said.

 

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