iStar, through its ground-lease arm Safehold, bought the Moda North Bay Village Apartments along Biscayne Bay for $122 million.
Records show that an entity in the care of New York City-based Safehold bought the building at 8000 West Drive from an affiliate of Clarion Partners.
In line with Safehold’s business model, Safehold immediately leased the ground underlying Moda to Waypoint Realty. Records show that Safehold entered a 99-year ground lease with Boca Raton-based Waypoint for the 4.5-acre Moda site.
Safehold leases out the ground underneath real estate as a way to allow property owners to generate more return on their investment, according to its website. Publicly traded iStar, led by Jay Sugarman, founded and manages Safehold and is Safehold’s largest shareholder.
The eight-story, 567,884-square-foot Moda was developed in 2015 with 285 units, according to property records. New York-based Clarion Partners bought the property for $13.8 million in 2012 and developed the building in a joint venture with Zom Living.
The latest deal breaks down to $428,070 per unit.
North Bay Village, a small municipality between Miami and Miami Beach, was largely dredged out from Biscayne Bay in the early 1940s before it was incorporated in 1945. It consists of three islands, which are Harbor, North Bay and Treasure islands.
Moda is on Harbor Island and is surrounded on three sides by the bay. The island is largely home to multifamily buildings.
North Bay Village is seeing both new development and deal activity. In May, Masoud Shojaee’s Shoma Group bought a development site on Treasure Island for $15.8 million, with plans to build an apartment building with a garage and retail.
The billionaire Ansin family’s Sunbeam Television paid $56.5 million in three deals this year for an assemblage in North Bay Village. Sunbeam, which owns WSVN-Channel 7, bought property next to the TV station, as well as the former Trio on the Bay restaurant site and vacant land nearby.
Clarion Partners, led by David Gilbert, has sold other South Florida assets in recent months. Last year, it sold a BJ’s Warehouse-anchored retail center in Royal Palm Beach for $39.5 million.