John Buck JV proposes 41-story condo and office tower in downtown Miami

HUB Miami would mark Chicago-based firm’s first South Florida development

John Buck JV Planning Downtown Miami Mixed-Use Tower

From left: Pebb Enterprises’ Ian Weiner, BH Group’s Isaac Toledano, Florida Value Partners’ Gus Alfonso and The John Buck Company’s John Buck along with renderings of HUB Miami (Getty, Dark Room, Pebb Enterprises, BH Group, The John Buck Company, Florida Value Partners)

For his first South Florida development, Chicago-based developer John Buck is planning a 41-story mixed-use tower in downtown Miami. 

Buck’s eponymous firm and its partners — Miami-based Florida Value Partners, Aventura-based BH Group and Boca Raton-based Pebb Enterprises — want to build a skyscraper with 306 condos and 245,000 square feet of office space on a development site at 525 and 533 Northwest Second Avenue, according to a press release. The project will be called HUB Miami and already has a city-approved site plan. 

The joint venture paid $39.5 million for a four-story warehouse, an unfinished parking garage and two vacant parcels spanning 1 acre in February. Demolition of the warehouse and parking garage is expected to begin by the end of this year, the release states. 

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Designed by Hollywood-based ODP Architects, HUB Miami’s condos will be priced starting in the mid-$400,000s, the release states. OneWorld Properties is the exclusive sales and marketing brokerage for the residential component, while CBRE is leading the office component leasing efforts. 

HUB Miami’s tower will sit atop an eight-level parking podium. The office suites will be on the ninth through 21st floors, and offer floor plates ranging from 18,000 square feet to 32,000 square feet, the release states. The condo portion will begin on the 22nd floor, with studios and one-bedroom units ranging from 394 square feet to 1,046 square feet. 

Founded in 1981, Buck’s firm has acquired, developed and redeveloped more than 47 million square feet of office, residential, hotel, retail and mixed-use properties across the U.S., the release states. The John Buck Company’s real estate projects total more than $7 billion, including landmark buildings and skyscrapers in Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia. 

Florida Value Partners, led by Gus Alfonso, has managed more than $1 billion in land development, multifamily and other commercial real estate transactions, the release states. Pebb Enterprises, led by CEO Ian Weiner, and BH Group, led by Liat and Isaac Toledano, have several development projects in the pipeline across South Florida. In April, the two firms partnered to buy the Office Depot headquarters campus in Boca Raton for $100 million