RedSky, JZ sell Wynwood Block at a loss for $24M

Duo bought the building six years ago for $26M

Redsky Capital's Benjamin Bernstein and the Wynwood Block building at 2621 Northwest Second Avenue (Google Maps)
Redsky Capital's Benjamin Bernstein and the Wynwood Block building at 2621 Northwest Second Avenue (Google Maps)

RedSky Capital and JZ Capital Partners sold the Wynwood Block retail building at a loss, as they have been offloading their Miami portfolio in recent months.

The joint venture sold the one-story retail building at 2621 Northwest Second Avenue to Wynwood Block Realty, led by Joseph Cohen, for $24.2 million.

The buyer took out a $12.2 million mortgage on the property from Wayne, New Jersey-based Valley National Bank.

Cohen, who is affiliated with Miami Beach-based Elysee Investment, bought the property as his own investment, separate from Elysee, according to a representative at Cohen’s company.

Brooklyn-based RedSky and Manhattan-based JZ Capital through their affiliate bought the building in 2015 for $26 million.

The 24,763-square-foot former warehouse sits on 0.8 acres. It was fully renovated in 2015.

Tenants include Le Labo perfume store, Ray-Ban and Mister Block Cafe. Neighborhood staple Wynwood Diner closed its location at the building.

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RedSky is led by Ben Bernstein and Ben Stokes, who started the firm in 2006. JZ, led by David Zalaznick and Jay Jordan, is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

The joint venture most recently sold a 14,000-square-foot vacant lot at 2407 Northwest Second Avenue just south of Wynwood Block to Property Markets Group for $11.5 million. PMG and Greybrook Realty Partners are developing Society Wynwood apartment complex on the site, slated to open next year.

That came on the heels of RedSky and JZ’s lender, Seven Valleys, closing on the joint venture’s Wynwood assemblage at 257 Northwest 27th Street; 252, 268 and 276 Northwest 27th Terrace; and 2700 Northwest 2nd Avenue, in October. RedSky and JZ at the time sold those properties for $26 million, also at a loss from the $31 million the duo paid in 2016.

The RedSky and JZ venture scooped up Miami real estate at top-dollar prices.

In Miami’s Design District, the joint venture owned a portfolio of 14 buildings that it put on the market last year after acquiring them for $236 million in separate deals in 2015 and 2016. It also had taken out a $220 million loan from New York-based Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance on the portfolio.

Most recently, Apollo took over the Design District portfolio and is developing these properties with The Comras Company into The Market at Miami Design District.

Just prior to Apollo taking over the Design District real estate, JZ Capital in August wrote down to zero its stakes in that portfolio, as well as in a downtown Brooklyn development site.