Ubiica, Maven buy Coral Gables office building, parking lot for $9M

Duo owns adjacent office property

Ubiica’s Alejandro Salazar and Rodrigo Gana with 1533 Sunset Drive. (Google Maps)
Ubiica’s Alejandro Salazar and Rodrigo Gana with 1533 Sunset Drive. (Google Maps)

Ubiica and Maven Real Estate bought a Coral Gables office building and parking lot for $8.7 million.

The partners bought the two-story property at 1533 Sunset Drive and the 10,000-square-foot parking north across San Ignacio Avenue, said Alejandro Salazar, Ubiica’s manager.

The seller is Winter Garden, Florida-based Windsor Investments, managed by Lisa Bennett and Sheri Loiacono, according to records.

Miami-based Ubiica and Coral Gables-based Maven Real Estate also own the adjacent three-story office building at 1541 Sunset Drive. They bought it for $7.6 million in December.

The newly purchased offices will remain, but the duo wants to develop the portion of the lots immediately behind each building with either multifamily or an assisted-living facility, Salazar said. The garage behind 1541 Sunset will be demolished to make room for the new project.

The developers have not yet submitted plans to the city or settled on a project height, although the site allows for 128 units, Salazar said.

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

Both office buildings are about 95 percent occupied. Tenants at 1541 Sunset include Wells Fargo, an accountant and two law firms. Tenants at 1533 Sunset include a physician’s office, law firm and construction group.

The developers are betting heavily on Coral Gables. Ubiica, which also is led by Rodrigo Gana, and Maven, led by Jose Ortega and Marc Schwarzberg, in April completed an assemblage in a different part of the city, buying the office building at 152 Almeria Avenue for $4.1 million.

They want to combine this with their two adjacent lots at 130 and 160 Almeria Avenue to build an apartment building. The office building at 152 Almeria will be demolished once leases run out.

Ubiica and Maven also bought the office building at 2701 Ponce de Leon Boulevard and a parking lot at 103 Sevilla Avenue for a combined $11.6 million in 2019. They partly renovated the 2701 Ponce building and have it listed for sale.

Another developer betting on Coral Gables is Armando Codina’s Codina Partners, which wants to build a luxury apartment tower on a city block between Valencia and Almeria avenues, west of Salzedo Street. Codina Partners bought the site in April for $13.2 million.