3rd Downtown Miami Bulk Land Deal Closes

An investment fund has paid $22 million for an undeveloped site on Brickell Avenue in the heart of Downtown Miami's Financial District, marking the third land deal to close in the fourth quarter, according to a report compiled by Condo Vultures® LLC.

A newly created entity called 1451 Brickell, Inc., with Jorge Hernandez as president and director paid $840 per square foot on Nov. 4 for an undeveloped 26,182-square-foot site with frontage on Brickell Avenue, Southeast 15th Road, and Southeast 14th Lane, according to state and county government records.

The seller was Fourteen Fifty One Brickell, LLC, with Walter Defortuna, who is the younger brother of condominium developer Edgardo Defortuna, who built the Jade on Brickell Bay high-end condominium in Miami's Brickell Avenue area and the Jade Beach and Jade Ocean luxury condominium towers in Sunny Isles Beach.

"Three is normally a trend, but I'm not sure that we can apply that rule of thumb to this scenario as the purchase prices of these three land deals are all over the board," said Peter Zalewski, a principal with the Bal Harbour, Fla.-based consultancy Condo Vultures® LLC that produced the report. "What we take away from the surprising number of land transactions in such a short period of time is that many investors, regardless of market conditions and overbuilding, are bullish on the Brickell Avenue area."

The newly traded site at 1451 Brickell Ave., which is zoned high-density, mixed use, is immediately south of the Millenium Tower/Four Seasons mixed-use project at 1441 Brickell Ave., and east of a new 600,000-square-foot office tower being developed by Alan Ojeda's Rilea Group at 1450 Brickell Ave.

The 1451 Brickell site consists of two contiguous undeveloped parcels that form a rectangular site on the corner of Brickell Avenue and Southeast 15th Road, which is the traditional boundary between residential condo living to the south and mixed-use office towers to the north.

The southern portion of the property located at 1451 Brickell Ave. has 15,682 square feet. The northern portion of the property located at 1449 Brickell Ave. has 10,500 square feet, according to government records.

The buyer obtained a $13.2 million, or $504 per square foot, mortgage on the property from the seller, Fourteen Fifty One Brickell, LLC, according to government records.

The selling group originally purchased the property in December 2000 for $4.89 million or $187 per square foot. In 2008, Miami-Dade County assessed the value of the land at $6.41 million, or $245 per square foot.

The members of the selling entity are Fortunate Investments, Inc., with Walter Defortuna; Roam Investments, Inc., with Ricardo D'Amato; and Abbey, Inc., with Haracio L. Bossi, according to the Florida Secretary of State.

This is the third land deal to close in the Brickell Avenue area since the beginning of the fourth quarter on Oct. 1.

In October, an investment group purchased the former Brickell Citicentre site for $23.3 million or $95 per square foot, according to the Miami Daily Business Review. In the same month of October, a hotel investment group paid $6.27 million, or $275 per square foot, for a site just west of the recently opened Mary Brickell Village retail center in the popular Brickell Avenue area, according to the Miami Herald.

Peter Zalewski is a principal with the consulting company Condo Vultures® LLC and a licensed real estate broker with Condo Vultures® Realty LLC. Peter can be reached at 305-865-5629 or by email at peter@condovultures.com. Be sure to check out Peter's blog at CondoDump.com. Don't forget to sign up for our weekly Market Intelligence Report. Looking for a property at a deep discount? You are encouraged to take a peek at the Vultures Database^TM .

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