Related completes $104M Brickell acquisition

Rivergate Plaza
Rivergate Plaza

The Related Group’s $104 million purchase of a waterfront Brickell Avenue site has officially closed, The Real Deal has learned.

Related completed the acquisition of four acres at 444 Brickell Avenue on Monday, according to Miami-Dade County records. The county recorded the transaction on Tuesday. The company plans to build a three-tower mixed-use project called One Brickell on the two-property site.

New York-based DB Private Wealth Mortgage provided Related with a $53.5 million loan for the purchase. DB Wealth is a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas.

Plans for One Brickell include 1,200 residential units, a five-star hotel with about 200 rooms and convention space and at least 200,000 square feet of office and retail space. Related has formed a joint venture GTIS Partners for the development, according to a written announcement released by the company on Wednesday.

“We are pleased to enter this partnership with GTIS and have enjoyed a long standing relationship with the partners of the firm,” Related COO Matt Allen said in the company’s announcement.

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Two prominent architectural firms, Miami-based Arquitectonica and Pelli Clarke Pelli of Connecticut, have been hired to design the towers and commons areas. The 80, 70 and 55-story buildings would total more than four million square feet.

Related CEO Jorge Perez called One Brickell “the most important development in the urban core” in a written statement released last week.

The company developed the 1,800-condo Icon Brickell complex across the street from the 444 Brickell site, which presently includes an office building with a Capital Grille restaurant on the ground floor.

Seller CWCapital Asset Management, a subsidiary of CW Financial Services, put the properties on the market during the spring.

The office building was known in the 1980s for the popular restaurant Cye’s Rivergate. Back then, Miami’s financial district had a bustling professional population but virtually no nightlife. That changed during the last residential boom, when developers like Related constructed numerous high-rise condo towers in the district.