Former Club Space owner buys South Beach apartments for short-term rentals

Property is in the midst of conversion to an apartment hotel with 20 units

Louis Puig and 333 Jefferson Avenue in South-of-Fifth (Google Maps)
Louis Puig and 333 Jefferson Avenue in South-of-Fifth (Google Maps)

The former owner of Club Space paid $5.6 million for a South Beach multifamily property that’s being converted to short-term rentals, as the market heats up for vacation stays.

Louis Puig acquired the 24-unit apartment complex at 333 Jefferson Avenue in South-of-Fifth, according to the listing broker, Susan Gale of One Sotheby’s International Realty. The property is being converted to an apartment hotel, she said.

Records show 333 Jefferson Holdings LLC, led by Nathaniel Cohen, Steven Athea and Yonel Fellous, sold the two buildings.

Gale and Serena Joaquim of One Sotheby’s represented the seller. Gema Ruiz of Cedano Realty Advisors and Jose Maria de Guzman represented the buyer.

Puig, who sold his North Bay Road mansion in April for $17.5 million, plans to complete the renovation and conversion of the property into a 20-unit boutique apartment hotel with studios, one- and two-bedroom apartments, Gale said.

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“This is the type of property everybody is looking for,” she said, adding, “There’s a tremendous amount of cash buyers coming from everywhere looking for properties like this because Airbnb has become super popular.”

Nearby in South Beach, a multifamily building sold in December to a buyer that also plans to convert the property into an apartment hotel.

Sales of hotels, which largely stopped during the pandemic, have started again in recent months. Fort Partners, the developer of the ultra-luxury Four Seasons at the Surf Club in Surfside, recently acquired the Four Seasons Miami hotel in Brickell for about $130 million.

Gale said the market for hotels is “on fire,” and that buyers are now just waiting for the banks to start lending.