Crocker and Chicago-based firm take over partnership that owns Miami business park

Crocker Partners and Walton Street Capital avoided more than $1.5 million in taxes by acquiring the owner of Landing at MIA instead of the property itself

Angelo Bianco, managing partner of Crocker Partners
Angelo Bianco, managing partner of Crocker Partners

Crocker Partners and Walton Street Capital took over a limited partnership that owns Landing at MIA, a 1.52 million-square-foot business park near Miami International Airport.

Angelo Bianco, managing partner of Boca Raton-based Crocker Partners, confirmed that his firm and Chicago-based Walton Street Capital acquired the property by taking control of the partnership.

Bianco declined to comment on the price Crocker and Walton Street paid. No deed was filed with Miami-Dade County in connection with the transaction.

According to county records, officials at Crocker and Walton Street have replaced the previous managing member of SPUS7 Miami ACC Land LP, the owner of Landing at MIA.

The limited partnership got a $192.7 million mortgage loan from Deutsche Bank in late July.

The South Florida Business Journal also reported that Crocker and Walton Street probably paid more than the loan amount to take control of Landing at MIA because commercial mortgage loans usually equal 80 percent or less of the value of a financed property.

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Structuring the acquisition of Landing at MIA as a change in the ownership of the limited partnership instead of a deed-based deal allowed the parties to avoid over $1.5 million in taxes.

Sellers of commercial properties in Miami-Dade must pay a documentary sales tax of $6,000 for every $1 million of sales price plus a county surtax o $4,500.

Landing at MIA last sold in a conventional deed-based transaction in 2014 for $132.25 million.

The business park is 94 percent leased. Tenants include Bayview Loan Servicing, Norwegian Cruise Lines and United Healthcare.

Crocker and Walton Street retained brokerage firm Cushman & Wakefield to lease space at Landing at MIA. Cushman agents Brian Gale, Andrew Trench, Ryan Holtzman, Jeannette Mendoza and Lena Weeks are marketing the property. [South Florida Business Journal]Mike Seemuth