Revised plan to redevelop strip club site has stripped-down commercial component

CK Privé Group is downsizing its plan to redevelop Dean’s Gold strip club in North Miami Beach as a mixed-use project, with less commercial space than originally conceived.

Revised plans for the redevelopment, now called Uptown Biscayne, include reducing the office space by 95,000 square feet and eliminating a hotel from the mix, Javier Rabinovich, a principal of the joint venture behind the North Miami Beach project, told The Real Deal.

“We have the right size and the right product now,” Rabinovich, a principal of CK Privé, said. The developers are hoping to start construction in the second quarter of 2018, pending project approval by the city of North Miami Beach, he said.

Privé Land Banking and another developer, CK Holding Group, formed a joint venture called CK Privé Group to build Uptown Biscayne, formerly called Uptown 163. The joint venture got a $20 million loan from Florida Community Bank earlier this year to finance pre-construction costs for the Arquitectonica-designed development, including site preparation and infrastructure installation,

CK Privé Group paid $23.5 million in 2015 for the Dean’s Gold strip club property, part of an assembled 5.1-acre site at 2355 Northeast 163rd Street in North Miami Beach, at the intersection of Northeast 163 Street and Biscayne Boulevard. CK Privé Group acquired two other parcels that comprise the site, one for $12.7 million, the other for $12.8 million.

The limited partnership that sold the Dean’s Gold property had purchased it for $16.5 million in 2014, Miami-Dade County property records show. The 11,342-square-foot strip club on the site was built in 1977.

At the end of 2016, CK Privé was planning to develop 130,000 square feet of office space and a 160-room hotel at Uptown Biscayne, plus 200,000 square feet of retail space and 198 rental apartments.

Rabinovich said the revised development plan raises the number of apartments to 245 and reduces the office space to about 35,000 square feet. It also trims the retail space to 170,000 square feet and eliminates the previously planned hotel altogether.

The market for office space in Aventura and North Miami Beach is “robust,” but dominated by physicians, financial professionals and other “small footprint” tenants, said Rabinovich, an Aventura resident since 1999.

CK Privé Group also is developing two office condominiums in the Aventura area, including a 129-unit building called Forum Aventura that is under construction. Forum Aventura is 83 percent presold, he said, and construction is scheduled for completion in the second quarter of 2018. On a nearby site, Rabinovich said they are developing an condo office development with 287 units called Forum Park, formerly known as Aventura Square.