Brickell portfolio owner adds piece for $7M

Ugo Colombo
Ugo Colombo

UPDATED, 2:00 p.m., May 10: A landowner in Miami’s Brickell area added another piece to its property assemblage in a $7 million transaction, The Real Deal has learned.

Watson Investigations acquired a small restaurant building at 842 Southeast First Avenue, which is adjacent to the nearly 34,000-square-foot site the company purchased through bankruptcy court in July 2013, according to Miami-Dade County records. The 2,819-square-foot building is currently occupied by Chicken Kitchen.

Ambassa Holdings sold the 8,000-square-foot property to Watson. The North Miami-based company paid about $1.9 million for the parcel in December 2004.

The transaction closed on April 30 and was recorded by the county on May 2.

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A separate “agreement not to encumber or transfer property” was filed by Watson and DDH Investments, which is tied to Ugo Colombo’s CMC Group. DDH is identified in the filing as Watson’s lender, but no financing was recorded with the 842 Southeast First Avenue sale.

It has been widely reported over the past year that Russian oligarch Oleg Baybakov is a stakeholder in Watson, based on claims made by investor Jorge Arevalo, who was attempting the buy the site the company acquired through bankruptcy court. Arevalo unsuccessfully challenged Watson’s purchase and identified Baybakov as an investor in the company.

In fact, Baybakov is not involved in Watson at all, a Baybakov representative told TRD.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified Baybakov as the principal of Watson Investigations.