South Florida report

Luxury car condo project in Miami’s Overtown launches sales

Another group of Miami developers is looking to cash in on Miami’s luxury car collectors.

Louis Birdman and Jay Massirman are leading the development of AutoHouse, a seven-story, 45-unit car storage facility with a “Collectors Club” in Miami’s Overtown neighborhood. Units will range from $350,000 to more than $1.5 million and will come with the option to include wet bars, audiovisual systems and other “man cave” features. Owners will access their units via a 24-hour secured lobby with car elevators. There will also be a social club on the penthouse level, designed by ID & Design International with indoor and outdoor spaces and views of downtown Miami and Overtown. Other amenities will include private dining, a Formula 1 simulator and wine storage.

Land prices in recent years have surged in Overtown, an historically African-American neighborhood where mixed-use projects like MiamiCentral and Miami Worldcenter are under construction.

Luxury car storage has also popped up in Coral Gables, where a group of local developers is building Gables Auto Vault, a five-story luxury car storage condo. Prices there range up to $2 million for a unit that can hold up to 20 cars.

Massirman, a storage developer, said “upscale” storage has been in demand. “In major cities, people don’t have the room to store their 25-car collection, so they have to either trust third-party garages or bear the burden of managing their own warehouses,” he said.

Biscayne Building

Moishe Mana buys Biscayne Building in downtown Miami for $24.5 million

Moishe Mana is still assembling his downtown Miami Monopoly board. The Miami and New Jersey developer paid $24.5 million to acquire the Biscayne Building, marking his 39th deal along Flagler Street and the surrounding area over the past few years. With a total expenditure of more than $300 million, Mana has led new investment in the area in terms of volume. The majority of buyers in the area over the past two years are from New York.

Built in 1925, the building was home to the Bank of Biscayne and later the FBI.

Mana has plans to eventually redevelop his portfolio into retail, office and residential projects. He received approval for the first property, a 49-story, micro-unit apartment tower at 200 North Miami Avenue, in July.

Other investors, such as Danny Lavy and Daniel Pena, are also banking on the neighborhood’s potential. Pena opened the Langford Hotel, a former bank building, earlier this year.

Short-term renters in Miami Beach rack up nearly $1.6 million in fines

The city of Miami Beach is cracking down on short-term rental violations. From March to mid-August, fines issued by the city for short-term rental violations totaled $1.59 million. Fines start at $20,000 for first-time violators and increase for subsequent violations.

Rentals of shorter than six months and one day are banned in certain zoning districts. Fines for violations had previously ranged from $500 to $7,000, but the Miami Beach City Commission voted to increase them in December. In 42 of the 106 cases cited, short-term rental advertising companies, including Airbnb, Homeaway.com and Booking.com, were also fined.

“The short-term rental market is moving off the beach,” Julian Johnston, head of Calibre International Realty, said. “You can’t advertise anymore.”

Among the violators? Real estate investor/developer Jon Shields, architect Robert Swedroe, New York investor Simon Itah and a number of LLCs. Jamey Kolka, CEO of the luxury vacation rental company SoBeautiful Lifestyle, was fined a total of $60,000 in June for the same home.

Miami is one of Airbnb’s biggest markets. In 2015, more than half of Florida’s 16,100 Airbnb hosts were in South Florida, including nearly 8,000 hosts in Miami/Fort Lauderdale.