Chicago firm pays $31M for Opportunity Zone dev site for apartments in Edgewater

Trilogy Real Estate Group is continuing its bet on Miami’s Edgewater, paying $30.6 million for an Opportunity Zone site with plans for a multifamily project.

Chicago-based Trilogy bought the 1.6-acre Edge 22 vacant property at 2201 Northeast Second Avenue, which allows for an up to 36-story tower with a maximum of 247 units, according to the seller’s broker, Rani Hussami of Apex Capital Realty.

Alexandros Tsoulfas and Jamie Maniscalco, also of Apex Capital, represented the buyer.

Records show the seller is Northeast Twenty-Third Street LLC, managed by J & R Managers LLC. Hussami declined to disclose the true identity of the seller.

Jesse Karasik, chief investment officer at Trilogy, said the company is exploring potential options for additional density beyond what’s allowed, but details are yet to be hammered out. This was an all-cash purchase.

Trilogy, led by Neil Gehani, bought the miniature soccer fields at 169 Northeast 27th Street and 2728 Northeast Second Avenue, as well as the adjacent vacant lot at 166 Northeast 28th Street, in Edgewater, for $12.5 million in December. The plan is for a 20-story apartment building, although details still are unknown and the firm has yet to file an application with the city.

Later in December, Trilogy paid $9.8 million for the three adjacent lots at 2634 Northeast Second Avenue, as well as at 192 and 186 Northeast 27th Street. The parcels consist of land, a small apartment building and a small retail property. Trilogy plans to convert the real estate into retail or offices, or a mix of the two.

Edgewater is “a very high-growth area, and very interesting long term and we are long-term holders, Karasik said. “We build and own for probably 20 to 30 years or more.”

All three sets of properties are in an Opportunity Zone — areas deemed as lagging economically and in need of an investment jolt. The federal OZ legislation allows investors to defer capital gain taxes in exchange for putting their capital gains toward an OZ project.

The development boom in Edgewater has transformed the neighborhood into an enclave of apartments and condos. And much more development is on the way.

Most recently, Brooklyn-based Beitel Group teamed up with Denver-based apartment real estate investment trust Aimco to develop a mixed-use project in Edgewater. Beitel paid $45 million for the 2.8-acre property at 3333 Biscayne Boulevard, two months after Denver-based Aimco’s $1.7 million purchase of 440 Northeast 34th Street. The two firms plan to build a 1.5 million-square-foot development with more than 600 apartments, retail and office space.

Another partnership plans an Edgewater condo tower that would be a doppelganger to the Zaha Hadid-designed One Thousand Museum in downtown Miami. The partnership is led by Kevin Venger and Louis Birdman, both of whom were part of the One Thousand development team, as well as by Michael Konig and Alex Posth. They completed the Edgewater site assemblage in January, paying about $22 million for all the units in the aging Harbor 29 condo at 710 Northeast 29th Street and for a next-door apartment building.