Revving up: Norman Braman acquires three Edgewater commercial properties for $13M

Entity managed by the Miami auto dealership mogul bought two warehouses and a parking lot

Norman Braman with 120 Northeast 20th Street and 106 Northeast 20th Street (Getty, Google Maps)
Norman Braman with 120 Northeast 20th Street and 106 Northeast 20th Street (Getty, Google Maps)

Auto dealership mogul Norman Braman is gassing up his real estate portfolio in Miami’s Edgewater neighborhood, acquiring two warehouses and a parking lot for $13 million.

An entity managed by Braman acquired the three adjacent properties at 106 Northeast 20th Street, 120 Northeast 20th Street and 135 Northeast 19th Terrace, according to records.

The seller, an entity managed by Katja Wehe-Rodriguez, Michael Wehe and Claudia Domenech, paid $3.9 million for the two buildings in 2005, and $385,000 for the parking lot five years later, records show. The three properties are near Braman’s MINI, BMW, Cadillac, Hyundai, Kia, Rolls-Royce, Bentley and Bugatti dealerships.

The 10,650-square-foot warehouse at 120 Northeast 20th Street was previously home to the recently closed Miami Fight Club gym. The adjacent three-story building totals 8,142 square feet. Both buildings were completed in 1926, records show.

A billionaire philanthropist and civic activist, Braman joined condo developer Jorge Pérez and two homeowner groups in suing the owners of Magic City Casino and the City of Miami in 2020 over a proposed Jai Alai fronton and card room in Edgewater. Braman is staunchly anti-casino.

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In January of last year, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Michael Hanzman ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor, finding that the Miami City Commission unlawfully approved a settlement with West Flagler Associates, the casino’s ownership entity, to build a new parimutuel site on land at 3030 Biscayne Boulevard owned by Crescent Heights, the Miami-based development firm headed by Russell Galbut.

Two months later, city commissioners approved a new settlement with West Flagler that includes a stipulation the company would not expand the fronton and card room into a full-blown gambling operation with slot machines. At the time, Miami City Attorney Victoria Mendez said that lawyers for Braman, Pérez, the Brickell Homeowners Association and the Morningside Civic Association informed her that they would not object to the new agreement.

In June of last year, the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit, records show.

Braman and his wife Irma live in an eight-bedroom, seven-bedroom waterfront mansion on Indian Creek, an affluent island where New York developer Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump are planting roots. The couple, former Trump White House advisers, bought a six-bedroom waterfront mansion on Indian Creek for $24 million last year.