New York hedge funder Spencer Waxman paid $7.7 million for the Bank of America Center in Miami’s Allapattah neighborhood.
Records show a company managed by Waxman and his wife bought the 68,174-square-foot office building at 1313 Northwest 36th Street for $112 per square foot. An affiliate of Miami-based Golden Sands, led by Peter Fedele and Mary Maguire, sold the property.
The project sits in an Opportunity Zone, which means the new owner can qualify for significant tax benefits if they substantially redevelop the property. The federal program allows investors and developers the ability to defer or potentially forgo paying capital gains taxes if they invest in a distressed area throughout the country for at least five years. There are more than 8,700 designated zones throughout the U.S.
The 1.7-acre Bank of America Center site is zoned T6-8 O, which means it can be developed into at least an eight-story building with 150 units per acre. It is also zoned T5-L, which allows for a higher density mixed-use building.
Waxman founded Shannon River Capital Management, a technology focused hedge fund that has a significant stake in the New York Times, according to a Bloomberg article this year.
The Allapattah property is 89 percent leased to a mixture of retail and office tenants, including Bank of America and the Miami-Dade State Attorney, according to a release from Cushman & Wakefield.
Scott Sime of Sime Realty Corporation represented the buyer. Cushman & Wakefield’s Miguel Alcivar, Dominic Montazemi, Scott O’Donnell, Tony Jones and Frank Begrowicz represented the seller.
Waxman previously acquired the Centennial Express Building, a 33,339-square-foot commercial building at 1251 Northwest 36th Street in Allapattah in March 2018.
Allapattah is seeing a rush of new interest from developers due to its close proximity to Miami’s urban core and Miami International Airport.
The city of Miami announced last week it is looking to develop an 18.75-acre site it owns in Allapattah north of Jackson Memorial Hospital in the Miami Health District. The city tapped CBRE to issue a request for information from developers and investors for the property between Northwest 19th and 20th streets, and Northwest 12th and 14th avenues in Miami.