Ram Realty scores $56M construction loan for Oakland Park mixed-use multifamily project with Sprouts Farmers Market

300-unit development will be built on site where Walmart once planned store

Ram Realty CEO Casey Cummings and the development site at 670 East Oakland Park Boulevard (Google Maps)
Ram Realty CEO Casey Cummings and the development site at 670 East Oakland Park Boulevard (Google Maps)

Ram Realty Advisors scored a $56 million construction loan for an Oakland Park mixed-use, multifamily project on a site where Walmart scrapped plans for a store.

Records show the Palm Beach Gardens-based firm, through affiliates RRPV Oakland Park MF and RRPV Oakland Park Comm, secured the loan for a planned 300-unit development with commercial space, including a Sprouts Farmers Market. Wells Fargo is the lender.

Ram Realty, led by Casey Cummings and Jim Stine, acquired the site last month for $16.5 million from Walmart affiliate Wal-Mart Stores East, after going through an approval process with Oakland Park and Broward County late last year.

Property records show RRPV Oakland Park MF paid $12.5 million for part of the 12 acres, and RRPV Oakland Park Comm paid $4 million for the remainder.

Project plans submitted to the county show 288 units will be built across several mid-rise buildings, as well as 12 townhouses, on 12 acres at 670 East Oakland Park Boulevard.

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Property records show Walmart bought the site for $5 million in May 2012 from Adkins Holdings. It received development approval for a Walmart Supercenter in 2016, but scrapped the plan in 2019 and listed the site for sale.

The site currently is home to a 119,889-square-foot vacant building for a long-closed Kmart that will be demolished.

Developer Ram Realty also is an investor, renovator and manager of commercial real estate throughout the Southeast U.S., according to its website. Its other planned projects include a Walmart-anchored mixed-use development in south Miami-Dade County near Zoo Miami. It bought the land in September from the University of Miami for $10 million.

Ram isn’t the only one replacing a shuttered big-box store with a multifamily project. A closed Costco near Doral is to be redeveloped into 356-unit Alexan Fontainebleau Lakes after a joint venture purchased the site in December for $19 million.

Oakland Park has seen retail trade activity recently. Last month, The Shoppes of Oakland Forest sold for $11 million, and in November a Walgreens store at 3100 North Andrews Avenue sold for $7 million to Chicago-based private equity firm Oak Street Real Estate Capital.