UPDATED, Jan. 15, 1:34 p.m.: Midtown Miami developer Midtown Opportunities paid $65.5 million for The Shops at Sunset Place, marking a 40 percent discount off its previous purchase price in 2015.
Federal Realty Investment Trust and its two local partners, Grass River Property and the Comras Company, sold the nearly 10-acre mall in South Miami more than five years after acquiring the property for $110.2 million. Grass River will continue to manage the retail center at 5701 Southwest 72nd Street, according to a press release.
Midtown Opportunities affiliate FRIT Shops at Sunset Place Fee Owner LLC closed the deal just before the new year. Holland & Knight attorneys Shawn S. Amuial and Richard A. Perez represented the buyer in the purchase. JLL’s Danny Finkle Manny De Zárraga and Maurice Habif represented the seller.
Federal Realty had been trying to redevelop the mall for years. In 2019, the developers received unanimous approval to transform the roughly half-a-million square-foot shopping center into a mixed-use site featuring a reimagined mall, a pair of apartment buildings and a hotel.
In November 2020, South Miami voters rejected a referendum that would have made it easier for the commission to approve projects. The referendum proposed requiring just four commissioners to sign off on changes. Currently, a unanimous five-commissioner vote is required.
The same Federal Realty partnership also owns CocoWalk in Coconut Grove.
Midtown Opportunities, led by Alex Vadia, owns projects in Midtown Miami and Orlando. It partnered with Magellan Development Group on Gio Midtown, a mixed-use apartment building that opened last year.
Vadia said in the release that his company “jumped” on the opportunity to purchase Sunset Place, and that it looks forward to “re-imagining the possibilities of Sunset Place alongside our community partners.”
Sunset Place, anchored by a 24-theater AMC and a Barnes and Noble, opened in 1999. The property was previously home to the Bakery Centre Shopping Plaza.