Florida East Coast Industries recently secured $200 million in new financing tied to seven redevelopment properties near Brightline stations in downtown Miami and downtown Fort Lauderdale.
Miami-based FECI extended an existing loan with Morgan Stanley with an additional $122 million, records show. The original amount for the loan, taken out in 2019, was for $200 million. In October, after renewing the mortgage, FECI increased it by $38 million. The total amount now is $360 million.
Separately, FECI also took out a $78 million mortgage last week provided by Morgan Stanley and CanAm Capital Partners, records show. The financing recapitalizes the seven properties, which FECI put up for sale in January, hiring Cushman & Wakefield to market the land.
The downtown Miami sites, totaling 2.7 acres, consist of two surface parking lots at 200 Northwest First Avenue and 195 Northwest Second Street. The properties are slated to be redeveloped into two 83-story towers with 2,007 residential units, 49,634 square feet of commercial space and 2,136 parking spaces, according to plans that FECI submitted to Miami-Dade County.
Last year, FECI completed its apartment tower Park-Line Miami at 100 Northwest Sixth Street in Overtown.
Both development sites are near Brightline’s MiamiCentral Station and two office buildings with ground floor retail and a garage, which were developed by FECI. In 2019, the company sold the office portion, 2 MiamiCentral and 3 MiamiCentral, to Shorenstein Properties for $159.4 million. In March, Shorenstein flipped the buildings to Blackstone Group for $230 million.
In Fort Lauderdale, FECI is also looking to sell five vacant sites adjacent to the Brightline station at 101 Northwest Second Avenue. The properties, which were also part of the financing, are located at 105, 109, 110, 113 and 117 Northwest Third Avenue.
FECI recently sold two other redevelopment properties at 130 Northwest First Avenue and 117 Northwest Second Street in Fort Lauderdale for $37.2 million.
Brightline suspended operations at the beginning of the pandemic, but the company recently announced that train service between downtown Miami and West Palm Beach would resume later this year.