Fort Lauderdale Beach investors add to commercial portfolio with $32M deal

Fort Lauderdale investors Aiton “AJ” Yaari and Lior Avidor paid $32 million for an assemblage of properties on Fort Lauderdale Beach Boulevard, property records show. 

The duo are fresh off the $18.7 million sale of the Aquatic Center Plaza, also on South Fort Lauderdale Beach Boulevard, to a New York developer. Yaari and his partner now control about 4.5 acres in the area, and he said he plans to keep the properties as they are for now.

Together Yaari and Avidor control about 325 feet of the 500 feet fronting the boulevard on the 200 block. Yaari told The Real Deal up to 300,000 square feet of a mixed-use retail, hotel and condo project can be developed on the land, which is across the street from the beach.

Records show TRD of Fort Lauderdale LLC, which is controlled by Yaari and Avidor, bought the properties at 201-203 and 213 South Fort Lauderdale Beach Boulevard from the Miniaci family’s Miniaci Enterprises, led by Dominick Miniaci. They total about 30,750 square feet of land, which comes out to about 0.7 acres, a 8,200-square-foot building and a 10,300-square-foot building.

The Miniaci family, longtime holders of real estate in the area, had owned the properties since the 1970s. Tenants include the Drunken Taco, a souvenir store, Sweets and Treats and Cafe del Mar. The low-rise buildings were built between 1958 and 1985.

Yaari and Avidor financed the deal with a $17.9 million mortgage from City National Bank of Florida.

Property values along the boulevard, also known as A1A, have skyrocketed as of late. In March, investor Joseph Cohen paid $7 million, or $670 per square foot, for the land underneath the Elbo Room, a Fort Lauderdale Beach institution at 3001 East Las Olas Boulevard.

“People don’t know about Fort Lauderdale Beach,” Yaari said. “It’s like this hidden baby that never got the right credit. But we are the future. There are a lot of big things happening.”