London investment firm pays $19.6M for Collins Avenue property planned as hostel

3120 Collins Avenue
3120 Collins Avenue

London-based Queensgate Investments just paid $19.6 million for the former Atlantic Princess Condominium in Miami Beach that’s planned to become a hip Generator hostel.

The building at 3120 Collins Avenue is part of Queensgate’s $494 million purchase of Generator and its 14-site portfolio in London, Paris, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Dublin, Hamburg, Barcelona, Berlin, Stockholm, Madrid, Venice and Rome, as well as Miami, according to a report in IPE Real Estate.

A joint venture between London-based Patron Capital Ltd. and Atlanta-based Invesco sold the Miami property, according to Real Capital Analytics. Patron acquired London-based Generator in 2007, and sold a minority stake in Generator to Invesco in 2014, according to Generator’s website and IPE.

Patron and Invesco had purchased the condo’s 101 units individually in 2015, with the intent of converting the property to a Generator hostel, which would mark the brand’s first site in the United States. The units were each purchased for $200,000 or more by G 3120 Collins LLC, in the care of Squire Pattons Boggs attorney Thomas Eagan. A call to Eagan was not immediately returned.

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

According to Generator’s website, the Miami hostel is still “coming soon.” The company calls its hostels design-driven, with “a whole new dimension of cool.”

The Mid-Beach building is just down the street from the Faena District, which runs on both sides of Collins Avenue from 32nd Street to 35th Street. Developed by partners Alan Faena and Len Blavatnik, the Faena Hotel opened in late 2015, and Faena House, a luxury condo tower and the Faena Forum arts complex have also been completed. The Faena Bazaar retail building and a parking garage are under construction.

Harunobu Coryne contributed reporting.