Developer Amanda De Seta buys South Beach apartment building

The seller paid $4.1M in 2017 to buy out condo unit owners of 1922 building

Top, down: Amanda De Seta, Roland Ortiz and Victor Olaniel with 221 Collins Avenue
Top, down: Amanda De Seta, Roland Ortiz and Victor Olaniel with 221 Collins Avenue

Miami developer Amanda De Seta closed on an apartment building in South Beach with flexible zoning.

De Seta, founder of LointerHome, which renovates distressed properties, paid $5.4 million, or about $491,000 per unit, for the former Royal condo building at 221 Collins Avenue in the South-of-Fifth neighborhood of Miami Beach.

Annette Marciano, who owns the Blanc Kara Hotel at 205 Collins Avenue, sold the 11-unit building which she had converted from condos to apartments, said Roland Ortiz of Worldwide Properties. Ortiz and his broker, Eddy Martinez, represented the seller. Victor Olaniel and Irving Padron of Engel & Völkers represented De Seta, she said.

The deal closed on Friday.

Ortiz said that the seller, Marciano, spent about $4.1 million buying the 11 condo units that made up the property in 2017. The process took about a year to complete, and Marciano later dissolved the condo. She plans to use the roughly $1 million in profit to renovate the Blanc Kara Hotel, Ortiz said.

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The two-story, 9,160-square-foot building at 221 Collins sits on a 6,500-square-foot lot and was built in 1922, records show. The property is zoned R-PS3, which Ortiz said allows for short-term rentals, hotel, multifamily and condo uses.

Last year, a European investment and management firm paid $14.6 million, or about $541,000 per unit, for an apartment building at 250 Collins Avenue that was marketed with the option to convert the building into a hotel, apartments, short-term rentals, a condo-conversion and condo-hotel.

De Seta declined to comment on her plans for the building at 221 Collins but said that she will renovate the property, which she called a “very unique piece of Miami Beach history.”

LointerHome’s projects have included Glass House, a group of six single-family homes in Coconut Grove. De Seta also bought the Bookstore in the Grove at 3390 Mary Street in 2017.