This Week’s South Florida Deal Sheet: 1.4M SF Industrial Portfolio Changes Hands

Pennsylvania-based Seagis Property Group sold a 25-building industrial portfolio of buildings across Broward and Miami-Dade counties to Boston-based Longpoint Partners.

The 1.4M SF portfolio was 97% leased by 77 tenants at the time of sale, according to a release. The complete list of the properties wasn't disclosed, but six transactions totaling $116M have been reflected in Broward County deed records, South Florida Business Journal reported. 

The property sales that have been recorded online are:

• A group of warehouses totaling 242K SF at 1919 NW 19th St. in Fort Lauderdale sold for $47.1M.
• 2100 SW 71st Terrace in Davie, 90K SF, sold for $18.3M.
• 400 Goolsby Blvd. in Deerfield Beach, 89K SF, traded for $8.1M.
• 3420 NW 53rd St. in Fort Lauderdale, 78K SF, sold for $7.9M.
• 3520 Northwest 56th St. in Fort Lauderdale, 56K SF, sold for $11.1M.
• 3685 NW 15th St. in Lauderhill, 50K SF, traded for $9.9M.

CBRE brokers Jose Lobón, Frank Fallon, Trey Barry, and Chris Riley represented Seagis with assistance from Tom O’Loughlin, Devin White, Royce Rose and Alain Bonvecchio.

Silicon Valley Bank, which was acquired by First Citizens Bank in March amid the regional banking crisis, financed the deals with mortgages for warehouses across multiple states, SFBJ reported. 

SALES

Pella, a window and door manufacturer headquartered in Iowa, purchased a manufacturing facility in Medley for $45M, Commercial Observer reported. The 268K SF building was sold by Lawson Industries, a maker of aluminum windows and doors that paid $2.6M for the property in 1999. 

The property, on 14 acres at 8401 NW 90th St., is the headquarters for Lawson, which was acquired by Pella last month for an undisclosed amount. 

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Mattamy Homes paid $10M for the Forest Oaks Golf Course west of Lake Worth Beach in Palm Beach County, the SFBJ reported. The Toronto-based homebuilder acquired the 79-acre golf course at 4401 Lucerne Lakes Blvd. from Grillo Golf Management LLC, managed by Nicholas Anthony Pisano Jr. 

Mattamy filed plans in 2021 to redevelop the golf course into 100 single-family homes and 350 townhouses. The company’s website says the community will deliver in fall 2024 as Forest Oaks with prices starting above $400K. 

FINANCING

Smartland, a multifamily investment firm with offices in Miami and Ohio, is launching a $250M equity fund that will look to acquire workforce housing assets in South Florida and Ohio, Executive Vice President Steven Gesis told Bisnow. 

Smartland expects to have the opportunity to buy properties at a discount due to market distress. Its two-market strategy is meant to hedge against risk by combining assets in a high-growth market like South Florida and the “slow and steady” Midwest, Gesis said.

The fund will look to leverage agency debt and focus on midsized assets in the 30-unit to 150-unit range without rent restrictions.

Smartland’s client base is primarily made up of high net-worth, U.S.-based individuals who invest an average of $150K, Gesis said. He’s planning to launch the fund this week at a conference in Palm Beach.

CONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT

The Fort Lauderdale City Commission voted 4-1 to approve a plan from New York-based Naftali Group to build 936 apartments near Downtown Fort Lauderdale. The approval was granted over the objections of the owner of the adjacent Dalmar hotel, The Real Deal reported. 

The planned development at 201 N. Federal Highway includes a 47-story tower and 45-story tower with market-rate apartments and a combined 5,569 SF of commercial space in the Flagler Village neighborhood. 

The site plan includes floor plates that exceed the allowable size outlined in the city’s master plan for downtown development, and Wurzak Hotel Group, the Philadelphia-based firm that owns the Dalmar, complained to the city commission that the project would obstruct the hotel's view of the downtown skyline. 

“Their increase in the floor plates blocks our view, blocks our sunlight, blocks fresh air. It’s terrible,” Wurzak President Jake Wurzak said at the Dec. 5 commission meeting, describing the project as “a looming shadow over the Dalmar.”

New York-based Naftali paid $21M for the 1.4-acre site in April 2022, property records indicate. 

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TM Real Estate Group, a multifamily development firm based in Coconut Grove, completed the 240-unit luxury apartment complex Shalimar West in Plantation, according to a release. 

The five-story, garden-style property and three-story parking garage at 8500 Clearly Blvd. were designed by Miami-based MSA Architects. Its apartments range from one to three bedrooms between 749 SF and 1,334 SF. 

Davie-based construction firm ANF Group built the property on the site of a former American Express office building. TM Real Estate Group acquired the property in 2014 for $33.5M and the 25-acre site was rezoned in 2017 for a mixed-use project called Plantation Midtown Square. The developer is planning a total of 480 apartments, 86 townhomes and 10K SF of retail space at the property. 

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Ian Bruce Eichner, the founder and CEO of Continuum Co., proposed a 20-story condo building at 12000 N. Bayshore Drive in North Miami, South Florida Business Journal reported. The 267-unit development would replace the Mariners Bay Condo, which was built in 1981 and is facing a costly repair bill to secure a 40-year building recertification.  

Eichner, whose Continuum Co. has offices in Miami and New York, told the SFBJ that he has 45 of the 46 condos at the property under contract. The Mariners Bay condo association filed a notice of termination with Miami-Dade County in August. 

The new 20-story condo tower, designed by Kobi Karp Architecture, would have 12 townhouses along with condos ranging from one to three bedrooms and 422 parking spaces. A 20-slip marina at the property would be renovated and the building would include a fifth-floor amenity deck.

Eichner expects it to take until around the third quarter of 2024 to get approval from North Miami to build the property. He’ll spend another year on a marketing plan before launching sales, he told SFBJ. 

LEASES

The 365K SF Westside Plaza office development at 8400 NW 33rd St. in Doral secured 40K SF in new leases, renewals and expansions, according to a release. 

The landlord — a joint venture between Denver-based real estate private equity firm Ascentris, Miami-based Highline Real Estate Capital and Miami-based Square2 Capital — has embarked on significant capital improvements to reposition the three-building property after acquiring it for $73M in 2021. It was represented in the transactions by a JLL team of Steven Hurwtz, Doug Okun and Katalin Belauste. 

The size of each deal was not disclosed but among the tenants are:

• BDP International, a cargo logistics provider represented by JLL’s Anthony LiVecchi
• Mid-America Overseas, a freight forwarder and logistics company represented by ComReal’s Patricia Quintana 
• Marken, a drug and biological samples shipper represented by a Colliers’ team of Adriana Rosillo and Maggie Kurtz
• Citrus Health, a nonprofit mental health provider 
• Baxcell Electronic, a wholesale seller of smartphones, tablets and laptops

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Eight new retail tenants opened their doors at River Landing at 1400 NW North River Drive near Miami’s Health District, according to a release. 

The new leases total more than 15K SF and include Claire’s in 870 SF, Miami Optical in 1,200 SF, Ceci Spa Hair and Nails in 1,030 SF, Divine Lash in 1,030 SF, Suite Svn in 5,805 SF, Anything Is Everything in 2,000 SF, White Coat Beauty in 1,078 SF and Carrot Express in 2,012 SF. 

The 360K SF River Landing was developed by Miami-based Urban-X as part of the Miami River Shops and Residences. It opened in 2020 on an 8-acre site owned by Toronto-based H&R REIT and also includes 135K SF of office space, 528 apartments and 2,000 parking spaces.