Brazilian airline mogul completes Edgewater assemblage

The founder of a Brazilian airline has completed his Edgewater assemblage with the purchase of two properties for $4 million.

Jose Afonso Assumpção is the owner of Lider Aviacão, a major aircraft charter and sales company in Brazil. He’s been assembling local real estate through his company Miami Sunrise Properties since at least 2013, and made waves recently when he flipped nearly an entire block of residential land in Brickell for $20.25 million. The buyer for those properties was the Alliance Residential Company, a multifamily investor headquartered in Arizona. On that same block, Assumpção also sold a chunk of land to Waterstone Capital, which the developer needed to begin construction on its Ten Brickell condo project.

After his Brickell blitz, Assumpçao turned his attention to Edgewater, where he began piecing together small residential lots between Northeast 33rd and 34th streets. County records show that since August 2014 he’s paid at least $29 million for a contiguous 2.8-acres of land, most of which is occupied by mid-century homes and apartments. The lion’s share of that sum went to a commercial site occupied by Wendy’s at 3333 Biscayne Boulevard in Miami, for which Assumpção paid $12.5 million, near the beginning of his acquisitions.

Last week, the airline mogul closed a $4 million deal for two holdout properties at 426 and 438 Northeast 34th Street. Each has 5,500 square feet of land, so the deal works out to roughly $363 dollars per square foot — a price that far exceeds the $215 per square foot that Spider Ventures paid for its development site down the street. The seller is Taho Beverly LLC, headed by Lior Cohen and Shai Moschowits. The two had acquired the properties for a combined $725,608. The apartments at 426 Northeast 34th Street were sold out of foreclosure in 2011, and the lot next door was sold by two Miami residents in 2012.

There is one remaining property on the block at Assumpção doesn’t own: a mid-century home at 440 Northeast 34th Street, owned by Kathy M. Kassner. She’s owned the home and its 5,500-square-foot lot since 1996. Kassner told The Real Deal that Assumpção has approached her with an offer, but she declined. The home was built by a friend of her parents, and she doesn’t wish to see it get torn down. 

“I have declined their offer,” she said. “In my opinion, it’s irreplacable. They probably will do a great job of building all the way around it.” 

Assumpção’s plans for the assemblage are unknown, though if his actions in Brickell are any indication, he might be looking to cash in on Edgewater’s development boom. The neighborhood has seen an incredible amount of attention from developers like the Related Group and the Melo Group, both of which have condo projects in the area.