Bowery Properties buys Little Haiti apartment portfolio for $12M

An apartment portfolio in Miami’s Little Haiti sold for $11.6 million, as the neighborhood undergoes redevelopment.

Bowery Properties, led by Thomas Neary, bought Buena Vista Gardens, an 89-unit complex at 5601 Northwest First Avenue, according to a news release.

Secamar LLC, led by Carlos, Martha and Carmen Sesin sold the apartments, records show.

The sale breaks down to $130,337 per unit.

Dwntwn Realty Advisors’ Skyler Marinoff represented both the buyer and seller in the off-market deal.

The apartments last sold for $4.4 million in 2014, according to property records. The portfolio includes 12 two-story buildings and a small detached house, built from 1947 to 1969, on a 2.2-acre property.

Marinoff said Neary is an active multifamily owner and manager who owns dozens of other units in the area, and has no plans to redevelop the property.

“This is just a solid portfolio of significant size in the urban core,” he said. “He will be doing some light renovations and will run it as a long-term owner.” Neary also will raise some rents that are below market, Marinoff said.

Last month, Neary’s Miami-based Bowery Properties sold a 35-property portfolio of single-family homes and apartment buildings in Miami’s Buena Vista and Little Haiti neighborhoods for $12.9 million. North Miami Beach-based Global Horizons Group bought the portfolio, with plans to renovate the properties.

Little Haiti is undergoing somewhat of a transformation with the development of the Magic City Innovation District, a $1 billion mixed-use project that won city approval two years ago.

In the works for several years, it is expected to include a 30,000-square-foot studio, a 15,000-square-foot innovation center for start-ups and co-working tenants, retail spaces, and 2,670 apartments in buildings up to 25 stories tall. The mixed-use project will span 15 acres between Northeast 60th and 64th streets and Northeast Second Avenue to the railroad tracks.