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Sunbeam Television buys North Bay Village site next to Channel 7 for $29M

Buyer for years opposed seller’s development plans

Sunbeam Television leader Andrew Ansin and WSVN-Channel 7 location. (Google Maps, Getty, Ansin)
Sunbeam Television leader Andrew Ansin and WSVN-Channel 7 location. (Google Maps, Getty, Ansin)

Sunbeam Television Corp., owner of WSVN-Channel 7, bought property next to the TV station in North Bay Village for $29 million.

Records show Sunbeam Television, led by Andrew Ansin, bought two lots next to Channel 7 from Isle of Dreams, led by Andre Radandt.

The property at 1415 Northeast 79th Street now has a two-story, 17,426-square-foot utility building that previously was used by WIOD radio station in Miami. The Channel 7 station at 1401 Kennedy Causeway is immediately to the west.

Isle of Dreams bought the property in October 2004 for $1.3 million from Clear Channel Broadcasting, according to records. Clear Channel has since been acquired by San Antonio-based iHearMedia, and rebranded as iHeart Communications.

The latest purchase comes after a decades-long legal battle between the buyer and seller over Isle of Dreams’ development plans for the 3.3 acres. Isle of Dreams, previously led by Scott Greenwald, initially wanted to build condominiums and eventually switched plans to a commercial development with a strip club. Sunbeam and some North Bay Village residents vehemently opposed the strip club, which the North Bay Village commission shot down.

In August 2012, Sunbeam sued Isle of Dreams to foreclose on a $4.8 million mortgage. Isle of Dreams originally took out the loan in 2008 from Spectrum Mortgage Group to finance its planned project on the site, and Sunbeam eventually purchased the note, according to court filings. Isle of Dreams counter-sued saying the lawsuit was part of a long campaign by Sunbeam to block property development. Sunbeam first had sued in the early 2000s to block the site sale to GFS, an affiliate of Greenwald that eventually transferred the site to Isle of Dreams.

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Sunbeam in 2014 dismissed its foreclosure action, but the case still is open. Greenwald, who no longer held interest in the property at the time of its recent sale, has pending counterclaims in the foreclosure action.

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This is the second big Sunbeam acquisition in North Bay Village this year. In February the company purchased 2 acres at 1555 North Bay Causeway for $14 million.

In December 2019, a trust tied to Sunbeam co-founder Edmund Ansin sold 29 acres off Flamingo Road in Miramar to Florida Crystals for $29 million. The Ansin family had bought the land in 2018 for $14 million.

Ansin and his father, Sidney Ansin, founded Sunbeam in 1962. Following Edmund Ansin’s passing last year, his sons, Andrew and James Ansin, took over Sunbeam. Andrew Ansin is president and CEO.

The small municipality of North Bay Village along Kennedy Causeway has seen some sales activity in recent years. In November 2019, Latvian investors bought Shoppes at the Lexi on the ground floor of Lexi Condominiums for $7 million.

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