Keith Menin snags a home on North Bay Road, Brickell Flatiron commercial space buyer seeks court-ordered discount: Daily digest

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Nelson Gonzalez and Keith Menin with 2318 North Bay Road

Keith Menin snags a home on North Bay Road. Hotelier Keith Menin paid just over $12 million for a bayfront mansion in Miami Beach, roughly a year after buying another home in the Venetian Islands. Property records show Stuart Browning, founder of Embarcadero Technologies, an IT company based in San Francisco, sold the eight-bedroom, nearly 15,000-square-foot mansion at 2318 North Bay Road [TRD]

Brickell Flatiron commercial space buyer seeks discount on $22.5 million sales price. Three years after agreeing to pay $22.5 million for Brickell Flatiron’s retail and restaurant space, a partnership between Avi Dishi and Haim Yehezkel wants a Miami-Dade Court to reduce the purchase price over allegations of an undisclosed revision of the construction plans. In a recent-filed lawsuit in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, Manhattan-based Dishi and Sons, and Brickell Flatiron Retail, a firm owned by Dishi and Yehezkel, accuse CMC Group affiliate Downtown Development Holdings of making significant portions of the 24,800-square-foot ground-floor commercial space unusable by placing a garage ramp through it. [TRD]

David and Leila Centner and the Centner Academy (Credit: Getty Images, Google Maps)

Owners of new Miami Design District school hired the mayor’s law firm to represent them in zoning appeal. In June, real estate investors David and Leila Centner received approval to operate a preschool at the property, at 4136 North Miami Avenue, after they agreed to reduce their student body to 120 from nearly 200 students. Later in June, attorney David Winker filed an appeal regarding the Miami Planning Zoning & Appeals Board approval on behalf of his clients, a group of residents in nearby Buena Vista. The couple hired Greenspoon Marder, the same firm in which Mayor Suarez is of counsel, to represent them in obtaining the zoning exception from the city of Miami. [TRD]

Hurricane Dorian is strengthening as it prepares to hit Florida. After moving past Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands on Wednesday, Dorian is in the Atlantic Ocean for the next few days and is moving northwest at 13 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center, the Miami Herald reported. As of Thursday at 5 a.m., the storm was about 150 miles north of San Juan. The forecast showed Dorian strengthened to maximum sustained winds of 85 miles per hour, an uptick from 80 on Wednesday night, according to the Miami Herald. [Miami Herald]

Three women were arrested last week for their roles in an affordable housing scam in Miami-Dade. Manuela Leonor Levy, Azalia Isabel Garcia and Aurora Mercedes Gomez were arrested by Miami-Dade Police last week on charges of an organized scheme to defraud, public records show. They allegedly took thousands of dollars from Section 8 housing applicants between October 2015 and July 2017 after promising to expedite the application process for affordable housing, according to NBC Miami. [TRD]

HGreg Auto and the former Toyota dealership (Credit: HGreg, Google Maps)

HGreg.com parked $10.5 million into a vacant former Toyota dealership site in West Palm Beach. Mclean, Virginia-based Capital Automotive L.P., which is controlled by Brookfield Property Partners, sold the 24,794-square-foot-building for $423 per square foot, to HGreg Auto, records show. The 9.7-acre property sits at 551 South Military Trail close to the Palm Beach International Airport. [TRD]

Broker Jamie Maniscalco and Russell Galbut with 2901 Northeast Second Avenue

Russell Galbut closes on a missing piece of his Edgewater assemblage. Developer Russell Galbut’s Crescent Heights closed on a corner piece of his assemblage in an Opportunity Zone in Miami’s Edgewater neighborhood, The Real Deal has learned. The Miami-based firm, which is planning a major mixed-use project on the land assemblage, paid $4.9 million for the 10,452-square-foot property at 2901 Northeast Second Avenue, according to a source familiar with the deal. It includes a 3,600-square-foot retail building. [TRD]

Compiled by Keith Larsen