Updated, 6:40 p.m., Nov. 28: The Rubell Family Collection will move from Wynwood to Allapattah as investors continue to target the industrial neighborhood.
The art collection will move to a new 100,000-square-foot museum on a 2.5-acre site in Allapattah, the Rubell family announced on Monday. The new museum will be located at 1100 Northwest 23rd Street, sources told The Real Deal. The property has been the site of Trujillo & Sons Quality Food Products.
Property records show Track 23 LLC, an entity controlled by Jason Rubell, paid $4 million for the nearly 2.5-acre property in April 2015.
A spokesperson for the Rubell Family Collection declined to provide an address for the new location.
The Rubells’ art collection has called Wynwood its home for 23 years, in a 40,000-square-foot warehouse at 95 Northwest 29th Street once used by the Drug Enforcement Administration. The building will be listed for sale with the proceeds going toward the move, according to a press release. The Rubell Family Collection paid $450,000 for its Wynwood warehouse in 1993, records show.
Selldorf Architects and Allapattah-based McKenzie Construction will design and build the new museum, which will include 40 exhibition galleries, a research library, lecture hall, event space, storage, sculpture garden and a restaurant led by a Miami restaurateur. Construction will begin soon, and the new campus is slated to open in December 2018, collector Mera Rubell said in a statement.
“The Wynwood neighborhood — which was factories and warehouses when the Collection moved here 23 years ago — has become a major cultural destination populated by art galleries and institutions, restaurants and boutiques,” she said in the release. “It is time for us to reimagine our Foundation in a very exciting emerging neighborhood.”
Commercial investment in the neighborhood, which is west of Wynwood, has taken off in recent years. In September, Miami Beach developer Robert Wennett paid $16 million for the Miami Produce Center, a nearly 10-acre site in Allapattah.
The Rubell family owns a number of properties in Allapattah, including the warehouse across from the site of the new museum at 1101 Northwest 23rd Street, which it acquired in March for $8.4 million. LLCs controlled by the Rubells also own the buildings at 1365 Northwest 23rd Street and 1395 Northwest 22nd Street, and the lot at 1390 Northwest 22nd Street. The Rubells also own the Albion Hotel South Beach at 1650 James Avenue in Miami Beach.
Carlos Fausto Miranda, president of Fausto Commercial Realty Consultants, said pricing in Allapattah varies by use and location.
“In certain areas values have already tripled in only one or two years, while other areas within proximity are still under-the-radar and thus still very reasonably priced and providing greta opportunities,” he told TRD via email. “The neighborhood is still very raw, and today differences of one or two blocks can mark dramatic differences in pricing.”