3rd Land Deal In 30 Days Closes In Greater Downtown Miami

MIAMI, FL, Jan. 22, 2010--A South Florida private equity group has purchased a 1.2-acre condo highrise development site in Greater Downtown Miami's Brickell Avenue area for $159 per square foot, representing a 15 percent discount off the current assessed value, according to a new report from CondoVultures.com.

The buyer, South Miami Avenue LLC, paid $8.35 million for six lots totaling 52,584 square feet of developable land at 1300 S. Miami Ave. that was earmarked to accommodate the proposed Infinity II condominium, according to the CondoVultures.com report based on Miami-Dade County records.

After acquiring the land on Jan. 12, the buyer satisfied a $12 million land loan on Jan. 19 that had been taken out against the property by the seller, Infinity II At Brickell LLC. Terms of the land loan satisfaction are not known.

The first Infinity condominium, (top left photo)  a 56-story tower with 459-units, stands immediately west of the Infinity II developable site that was acquired. In fact, a two-story former bank branch with 4,927 square feet of office space that stands on the Infinity II site is used as the sales center for the first Infinity condo tower.

"This is the third land sale to occur in the Greater Downtown Miami market in the last 30 days," said Peter Zalewski, (middle  right photo)  a principal with the Bal Harbour, Fla.-based real estate consultancy Condo Vultures® LLC.

"The pricing has ranged from as little as $53 per square foot to as much as $159 per square foot for the dirt. Interestingly enough, all of the buyers own or have previously owned in South Florida."

For instance, South Miami Avenue LLC is a Delaware company controlled by Coral Gables developer Alex Vadia, according to the Miami Daily Business Review.

Another Coral Gables group, Benzol Properties Corp with principals Bernard Herskowitz and Jerome Herskowitz, paid $53 per square foot for three lots in a rectangular shape on the south bank of the Miami River at 99 SW 6th St., according to a recent report from CondoVultures.com.

The Miami River site closed on Jan. 5, 2010, at a 52 percent discount off of the current assessed value, according to government records.

On Dec. 30, 2009, the Related Group, South Florida's largest condominium developer, unloaded a Downtown Miami development site for the proposed Loft III high-rise condominium tower (middle left photo)  at $151 per square foot to a local landowner who immediate resold the land to Miami-Dade College.

The Related Group's sold the property at a discount of at least 33 percent below the original purchase price, according to a recent report from CondoVultures.com.

The recent development site acquisitions come at a time when individual and bulk buyers are purchasing new condos at a pace of nearly 200 per month in Greater Downtown Miami, according to a recent Condo Vultures® White Paper.

Greater Downtown Miami is defined as a 60-block stretch from the Rickenbacker Causeway north to the Julia Tuttle Causeway, Interstate 95 east to Biscayne Bay. Greater Downtown Miami is comprised of the Brickell Avenue Area, Downtown Miami, and the Biscayne Boulevard Corridor.

In Greater Downtown Miami, there have been 15 bulk deals (two of the transactions were note sales with no deeds conveyed) since July 2008. Bulk buyers have paid $181 per square foot for more than 900 units and about 1.1 million square feet of livable space, according to the Condo Vultures® Bulk Deals Database™.

Less than 7,300 new condo units are still in the hands of developers of a pool of nearly 23,000 units constructed in Greater Downtown Miami since 2003. At the end of the 2008, developers were in possession of more than 9,300 new condo units, according to the Condo Vultures® Official Condo Buyers Guide To Miami™.

Contact:  Peter Zalewski, Principal, Condo Vultures® LLC, Office: 305-865-5629, Cell: 305-321-7383, eFax: 1-305-832-0311, Peter@CondoVultures.com,  http://www.condovultures.com/