Rendering of the Barlington Group’s plans for the building
The U.S. subsidiary of a major Israeli real estate player just paid $29.45 million for a development site near Brickell City Centre.
Property records show Gazit Horizons Brickell LLC bought the building at 90 Southwest Eighth Street in Miami’s Brickell neighborhood. The seller is 90 SW 8th Street Enterprises, led by Jaime Brugos. HFF’s Chris Drew and Danny Finkle represented the buyer. Arnaldo Cantero III of BGRS Commercial Real Estate Advisory represented the seller.
Gazit Horizons, the U.S. arm of Tel Aviv-based Gazit-Globe Ltd., has about $2 billion in potential spending power, most of which could be used to purchase retail sites in cities like Miami, New York and Los Angeles, newly-appointed president and CEO Jeffrey Mooallem told The Real Deal earlier this year. Mooallem plans to capitalize on the uncertainty surrounding retail and the abundance of distressed assets.
The Brickell property is surrounded by new development. It’s across the street from Brickell City Centre, next to Maizon by Zom, a high-rise apartment tower under construction, and blocks from the Related Group’s Brickell Heights and SLS Lux projects.
“We were attracted to this building because of its irreplaceable location in a great submarket,” and its adaptive zoning, Mooallem said. Gazit hasn’t finalized its plans for the site.
The seller paid $750,000 for the property in 1993. It was developed in 1971 on a 21,210-square-foot lot.
The Miami-based Barlington Group, led by developers Bill Fuller and Martin Pinilla II, was under contract last year to purchase the three-story office building, which hit the market in 2015 for $33 million. Barlington planned to develop the site into a retail and restaurant building with an option for office space, and hired Touzet Studio to design the plans. Fuller and Pinilla also own the retail property across the street that includes the Toasted Bagelry and Deli, and Blackbird Ordinary.
Cantero and Seth Gadinsky of Gadinsky Real Estate were handling preleasing. As of last year, asking rents on the ground floor were $125 per square foot, $60 per square foot on the second and third floors, and $80 per square foot on the roof – all triple net.
Gadinsky and Barlington could not immediately be reached for comment.