American Dream Miami developer Triple Five under contract to buy Archbishop Curley site in Little Haiti

Triple Five Group, the developer of the proposed American Dream Miami mall, is under contract to buy the Archbishop Curley-Notre Dame High School site in Miami, with plans to build apartments, condominiums and retail space, The Real Deal has learned.

Robert Gorlow, a Miami Lakes-based consultant for Triple Five, confirmed that the Edmonton, Canada-based company has the 15.56-acre site at 4949 Northeast Second Avenue under contract. He declined to provide a price or an estimated date for closing.

Triple Five, owned by the Ghermezian family, owns such malls as the Mall of the America in Bloomington, Minnesota and the West Edmonton Mall in Alberta, Canada. Its proposed $4 billion American Dream Miami project is up for county zoning approval on Thursday.

The company, led by Iranian-Canadian developer Eskandar Ghermezian, is planning to apply for Special Area Plan zoning for the Archbishop Curley campus. The size of the buildings and the number of apartments, condos and retail space are still to be determined, said Gorlow, who is a partner on the project.

In September, the Archdiocese of Miami put the Archbishop Curley-Notre Dame site on the market. Bids were due in November. Avison Young’s David Duckworth, John K. Crotty and Michael T. Fay and Bezold Realty were hired to market the site, unpriced. The archdiocese closed the school in 2016 and late that year reportedly received a $65 million unsolicited offer for the property.

If approved for T6-12 zoning, the site could be developed into a mixed-use project with up to 2,300 residential units, up to 28-story buildings and about 5 million square feet of space, Avison Young previously said. The brokerage firm does not comment on pending contracts, according to a spokesperson.

The property in Little Haiti is north of the Miami Design District and west of the Upper East Side neighborhood. It is near two major sites, the Eastridge Special Area Plan at 5045 Northeast Second Avenue and the planned $200 million redevelopment and expansion of the Jewish Health Systems campus.

Triple Five’s proposed 3.5 million-square-foot American Dream Miami mall would cover at least 174 acres in unincorporated northwest Miami-Dade. The development would include 3.5 million square feet of retail and restaurants, a theme park, 2,000 hotel rooms, a 16-story indoor ski slope, a 20-slide water park, a 14-screen 3-D movie theater, a performing arts center and more.

If the re-zoning is approved this week, Triple Five’s attorney Miguel Diaz de la Portilla said the project would break ground in the second half of 2019, with opening expected in 2023.