Morgan sells land adjacent to Pearl Midtown 29 development

Houston, Texas-based Morgan Group sold a small retail building on the corner of its Pearl Midtown 29 development site. 

Broker Tony Arellano

The 4,138-square-foot building, at 2800 Northeast Second Avenue, is leased by long-term tenants Genius Jones and Miami Children’s Music. The property traded for $2.46 million on Friday, according to broker Tony Arellano. It was built in 1925.

Arellano, executive vice president of Metro 1 Commercial, represented both parties along with Jordan Gimelstein of Whitehall Realty Advisors. On paper, Fifteen Adler EH of Midtown LLC sold the building, but that entity included the property when it sold the development site to Morgan in December. The true seller is Morgan Group, Arellano told The Real Deal.

Wynwood Retail BH LLC, controlled by a pair of Miami-based real estate attorneys — Denise Ben-David and Steve Waserstein of Waserstein Nunez & Foodman — purchased the single-story retail building. They plan to hold onto the building and keep it as-is, Arellano said. The land is zoned T6-12 O, which allows for up to 12 stories of development under Miami 21 code.

Next door, Morgan is building Pearl Midtown 29, a 20-story, 309-unit mixed-use apartment tower with about 13,000 square feet of retail. The multifamily developer paid $19.1 million for the 2-acre site in December from a partnership between Fifteen Group, Adler Development and Encore Housing Opportunity Fund. Morgan closed on a $71 million construction loan in early April.

That partnership paid $1.6 million for the corner retail property in 2014, records show, before selling it to Morgan in December.