In the biggest hotel sale in Miami Beach so far this year, partners Lionheart Capital and Actium Development Co. sold the Seagull Hotel Miami Beach for $120 million, The Real Deal has learned.
JHG Holdings Miami Owner LLC, a joint venture between Lionheart, led by Ophir Sternberg, and hotelier Jeffrey Dagowitz’s Actium, sold the waterfront hotel to BHI Miami Limited, according to sources. The Delaware entity is led by Nabil Kobeissi, records show.
The hotel at 100 21st Street traded two years after Lionheart and Dagowitz bought it at auction for $31.1 million.
The $120 million price tag for the 172-room South Beach equates to about $698,000 per key. It was built in 1948, records show. Sources said it will be redeveloped into a luxury hotel.
The Lionheart and Dagowitz joint venture had purchased the 1.23-acre property in December 2017 in a deal that included a ground lease that expires in 2049. The court-ordered sale followed litigation among the property’s seven previous partners.
The waterfront site is across a parking lot from the W South Beach and next to the Setai Miami Beach. Records show BHI made a loan to the sellers in September as a precursor to the deal.
BHI’s Kobeissi, who is also CEO of Blue Horizon Advisors of London, could not be reached for comment. Sternberg declined to comment and Dagowitz did not immediately respond to a message left at Actium.
Dagowitz is the founder of New York-based JHG Holdings, and has been responsible for the acquisition, development and financing of luxury hospitality real estate valued at more than $1 billion, according to Actium’s website. In 2017, he bought 83,000 square feet of air rights in New York’s Chelsea, assembling a development site with 243,000 buildable square feet.
Miami-based Lionheart Capital, along with Elliott Management Corp., recently completed the Ritz-Carlton Residences, Miami Beach, a luxury condo project in Mid-Beach.
Other hotels have recently sold for high prices in Miami Beach. Last year, Michael Shvo and his partners bought three neighboring hotels on Collins Avenue in South Beach, with plans for a 200-foot-tall residential project. In February, they bought the 83-room Raleigh Hotel for $103 million, or $1.24 million per key, from Tommy Hilfiger and the Dogus Group. The group later purchased the Richmond and South Seas hotels for nearly $88 million and $52 million, respectively.