Miami broker bags $13M for Continuum unit

Edie Laquer, a top commercial broker in Miami, sold a 33rd-floor unit with five decks and ocean views at the Continuum south tower in Miami Beach for $13 million, the seller’s broker, Dora Puig, told The Real Deal.

Miami-Dade County had not recorded the sale by late Wednesday and Puig would only identify the buyers as “Europeans.”

Laquer, a native of Paris who grew up in Toronto, is widely credited as a major player in building modern-day Miami, from Coco Walk to Brickell Ave.

“I believe Edie has been instrumental in shaping the Miami skyline,” Puig said.

Laquer has been embroiled in suits in recent years to win herself that credit — and a share of various projects’ success. Earlier Wednesday Laquer made news for winning a $3.8 million settlement, with possibly as much as $1 million to be awarded later, in a bankruptcy case linked to the Miami Midtown project, as TRD previously reported. Laquer sued a former client, Michael Samuel, in 2004 to claim a share of the development. Samuel declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2007.

A veteran broker who got her start in Miami in 1979, in the years since South Florida’s real estate collapse, Laquer has pursued other big name former clients, including parking magnate Jacob “Hank” Sopher and Terra Group principal Pedro Martin, more than once emerging from court with lucrative stakes in now-profitable developments that her clients lost when credit markets froze.

Laquer recently discovered that many of her childhood friends were living in the St. Regis Bal Harbour, Puig said. “She told me she wanted to make this life change,” she said.

In March, Laquer purchased two units at the St. Regis, across from Bal Harbour Shops, for $6.75 million, property records show.