An assemblage of four parcels just sold for $3.1 million in Allapattah, as investors continue to target the gritty Miami neighborhood west of Wynwood for redevelopment.
The properties include 2140 Northwest 36th Street, 2135 Northwest 35th Street, 2141 Northwest 35th Street and 2145 Northwest 35th Street. Records show the sites span 48,266 square feet of land with buildings dating back to 1935 and 1947 that house retail shops and restaurants, an auto sales center, two multifamily buildings, a duplex and a vacant lot.
Among the businesses: Bananas, offering Peruvian and Honduran food; a barber shop; a discount dollar store; and AA Auto Sales. All are in one-story buildings; most have bars on the windows. The total price equates to $64 per square foot of land.
Ralph Regueiro, a commercial real estate agent with Southeast Management and Consultants, represented the seller in the off-market deal. The seller is Elefem Inc., led by Archie Mehech and his son Luis Felipe Mehech.
“They own quite a few properties in and around Miami, in Allapattah and in Hialeah,” Regueiro told The Real Deal. “They saw some prices have increased, and there is a lot of interest in the area, so they felt now was a good time to sell.”
The buyer is a retired engineer from the Dominican Republic, Jose Miguel Urena Rosa, along with his wife Esther Magalys Eusebio de Urena. Grace Lohn, a broker with Grace Group International represented the buyer.
Eventually, the new owners plan to redevelop the properties, which are zoned either residential up to eight stories or residential duplex, Regueiro said.
Allapattah is seeing a surge of interest from investors and developers, as prices rise in other up-and-coming neighborhoods like Wynwood and Little Havana.
“Over the last year or so, a lot of investors started spilling out from Brickell to Little Havana, and now Little Havana is getting a little expensive, so [investors] are spilling over to the Alapattah area,” he said. “You can still get a lot of good deals.”
In September, Miami Beach developer Robert Wennett paid $16 million for the Miami Produce Center, a nearly 10-acre site in Allapattah. A couple of months later, the Rubell Family Collection announced it was moving from Wynwood to a new 100,000-square-foot museum in Allapattah. And in February, Redwood Housing Partners of Burlingame, California bought the Civic Towers in Allapattah for $25 million from Cordova, Tennessee-based Global Ministries Foundation.