Condo owners in Little Havana band together to list building as dev site

16 unit owners are asking $5.2M for the building, which comes out to $325k each

424 Southwest Seventh Street and Norman Smith
424 Southwest Seventh Street and Norman Smith

In an unusual twist, the owners at an aging condo building in Little Havana have banded together to list their property as a redevelopment site.

Norman Smith of Weichert Realtors Best Beach Real Estate is representing the 16 owners at Habana Condo at 424 Southwest Seventh Street in Miami. The 16,000-square foot building includes 18 parking spaces and sits on a 15,000-square foot lot. It’s asking $5.2 million, which breaks down to about $325,000 per unit and nearly $350 per square foot for the land.

The four-story building, built in 1973, features all two-bedroom, one-bathroom units ranging from 773 square feet to 800 square feet. The majority of units originally sold for $23,000 and $24,000 each in 1973 and 1974, records show.

Units at Habana Condo have recently traded for $91,600 in May, $95,000 in 2016, $75,000 in 2013, and $69,000 in 2010.

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Smith is marketing the property to be redeveloped as hotel, retail, storage or residential, and to be potentially rezoned to allow for additional height. Current zoning allows up to five stories of residential and retail.

It’s relatively uncommon for all unit owners in a building to agree in advance to sell their property. Developers 13th Floor Investments and Key International recently attempted to buy out all 300 condo owners at Isola Condominium on Brickell Key in Miami for $110 million. They abandoned the effort when not enough buyers agreed to sell.

Little Havana is in the midst of a building boom. New permit filings in the first half of 2018 jumped to 155, from 48 filings in the first half of 2017, according to an analysis of new permit applications filed with the Miami Department of Buildings.

Megacenter Brickell is under construction next door to Habana Condo. The two-tower, mixed-use project will include apartments, office and storage, and in 2016, the developer won zoning approval to build up to nine stories.