Jeff Berkowitz scores $60M refi for Kendall shopping center

Jeff Berkowitz’s Kendall Village Associates just closed on a $60 million loan from Ocean Bank for the refinancing of a 256,000 square-foot mixed-use shopping center in Kendall.

The Kendall Village Center at 8705 Southwest 124th Avenue, along with an adjacent parcel, totals 27.4 acres and 13 buildings. Tenants include Regal Cinema, Old Navy, GAP, Chuck E. Cheese, Jared Jewelry, Pier 1 Imports, Duffy’s Sports Grill, and a satellite Nova Southeastern University campus

A new phase of the shopping center is currently under construction, which includes a 82,311-square-foot Floor & Décor store expected to be delivered in the first quarter of 2019, according to a press release.

The shopping center is 100 percent leased, Ocean Bank’s head of lending and retail banking Ralph Gonzalez-Jacobo said in the release.

Kendall Village was developed by Jeff Berkowitz in 2000 and renovated in 2005. The retail developer’s Berkowitz Development Group also built Dadeland Station in Miami and the Fifth and Alton shopping center in Miami Beach.

Miami-based Ocean Bank is one of South Florida’s largest banks with more than $3.8 billion in assets and is an active commercial real estate lender, recently financing construction of Melo Group’s Art Plaza apartments in Miami’s Arts & Entertainment District and a nursing home expansion in Little Havana. –Keith Larsen