Wharton Realty buys Homestead shopping center for $82M

Property trades for 32% more than last sale in 2019

Wharton Realty buys Homestead shopping center for $82M
Homestead Pavilion shopping center at 2400 Northeast 10th Court in Homestead with CREC Capital's co-founders Alan Esquenazi and Warren Weiser and Wharton Realty Group’s owner Isaac Massry (Colliers, LinkedIn)

Wharton Realty Group bought the fully leased Homestead Pavilion shopping center for $82 million, or nearly 32 percent more than the property’s purchase price in 2019.

A four-way joint venture of CREC Capital, Highline Real Estate Capital, MMG Equity Partners, and Lubert-Adler Real Estate Funds sold the plaza at 2400 Northeast 10th Court, according to a CREC news release.

The purchase excluded four outparcels that are being built out with roughly 85,000 square feet of space, where Target, Murphy Oil and Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers will open. The properties are to be completed and sold in the next six months to a year, according to a CREC spokesperson.

The sellers, who owned the shopping plaza through affiliate Homestead Pavilion Acquisition LLC, paid $62.2 million for the center in 2019.

Their recent sale of the 298,000-square-foot plaza breaks down to just over $275 per square foot.

Danny Finkle and Eric Williams of JLL represented Wharton Realty’s affiliate in the deal. Colliers South Florida represented the sellers’ affiliate.

Colliers acquired CREC in 2018 for an undisclosed price.

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Miami-based Highline Real Estate was founded in 2016 by David Moret and invests in various real estate sectors across the U.S., with a focus on the Southeast, according to its website.

MMG Equity, based in Pinecrest, invests in commercial real estate, with mostly retail properties in Florida, according to its website.

MMG Equity managing partners Gabriel and Marcel Navarro are part of the Navarro family that started the drugstore chain of the same name, first in Havana, Cuba, and then in Florida in the 1960s. CVS Health bought the chain in 2014, according to Navarro’s website. The price was not disclosed.

In 2020, MMG sold a Presidente-anchored shopping plaza, also in Homestead, for $22.7 million.

Philadelphia-based Lubert-Adler Real Estate, co-founded by Dean Adler and Ira Lubert, is a real estate investor that has put $6.5 billion of equity into $16 billion of assets, according to its LinkedIn.

The Homestead Pavilion deal signifies a healthy retail market. 

Miami-Dade County’s retail vacancy rate was 3.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2021, the lowest since 2017, according to Colliers.

South Florida’s biggest retail deal of 2021 was the $108 million sale of the Shops at Beacon Lakes near Dolphin Mall, which far outpaced the $47 million top sale of 2020.