Preemptive bidders win two Miami auction properties

Two buyers made successful preemptive bids late yesterday, winning the
two sites that were slated to be auctioned this morning at a joint
AmeriBid-Colliers Abood Wood Fay auction at the Miami Marriott Biscayne
Bay.

The sites, a temple in Miami Beach and a piece of vacant land in Little Havana, each went for more than the minimum bids.

The
minimum on the 14,000-square-foot temple site, which was purchased by a
church, was $900,000. The site had been The Art Temple, a combination art studio, school and new age center founded by an Italian singer named Marivana. The minimum on the 11,700-square-foot vacant lot
just north of Calle Ocho, was $350,000, purchased by a multi-family
builder. AmeriBid said it would not disclose the specific prices and
buyers until the properties close.

“We’ve been marketing the
property aggressively for the last few months, with the idea of really
trying to generate towards this auction deadline,” said John Crotty,
senior vice president and partner at Colliers Abood Wood-Fay, who was
the listing agent for the properties. “Any time you put something out
there with a deadline on it, it creates a lot of interest and urgency.”

Crotty
said both bids were satisfactory to the bank, and the preemptive bids
were a way for the buyers to avoid what would likely amount to higher
prices at auction.

“I think the urgency of the bid deadline
was the trigger. The property had been marketed for a year before we
got involved in December,” Crotty said.

Such preemptive bids
occur about 20 to 30 percent of the time, according to Louis Fisher,
president of North Miami-based AmeriBid.

“It happens more often
when you have a specific use for the property. We had two parties that
were extremely interested in both of the sites that we had, both the
vacant land as well as the improved former temple,” Fisher said. “In
fact, one party that went under contract that put their deposit at risk
yesterday on the temple is another religious organization that’s going
to use the facility as it had been planned originally.”

The
religious site is the former location of the Art Temple, at 7141 Indian
Creek Drive, in Miami Beach. The vacant land used to house the
Restaurante Monserrate, until it was torn down with the intention of
developing the site. Both properties were bank-owned by the end of 2008.

Fisher
said the multi-family builder intends to put around 32 units on the
site, with retail space on the ground level and two to three levels of
apartments.