Steve Roth’s Vornado Realty Trust sold the Regal Cinemas-anchored retail building on Lincoln Road in South Beach at a discount for $93.6 million.
New York-based Vornado sold the property at 1100 Lincoln Road to an affiliate of Steve Gozini’s BH Properties, based in Los Angeles, according to records.
The price is 29 percent less than the $132 million Vornado paid for the building in 2012. It comes on the heels of an affiliate of BH Properties buying the property’s mortgage in December from lender Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank, based in Paris, a record shows.
Vornado, which is publicly traded, reported that it defaulted last April on an $82.8 million non-recourse loan on the building, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. (The South Florida Business Journal first reported on the loan sale and the more recent deed sale to BH.)
The four-story, 253,000-square-foot building, which includes a garage, sits on 1.6 acres on the southeast corner of Lincoln and Alton roads, according to property records. Built in 1999, it was renovated after Vornado secured a $34 million loan for the revamp in 2017.
Tenants include Ben & Jerry’s, a Romero Britto gallery and Casper. Still, several tenants have closed after Vornado sued them for unpaid rent in 2020 during the pandemic, including Banana Republic and Ladurée. The cases have been resolved, court filings show.
The deal follows Vornado announcing in its first quarter earnings call that it plans $720 million worth of property sales, including office and retail real estate.
This month, the company put up for sale the 29-story office building at 40 Fulton Street in New York’s Financial District, seeking $130 million to $140 million, according to marketing materials.
BH Properties invests in underperforming retail, office, industrial and multifamily real estate throughout the U.S. with the goal of adding value to the properties, its website says. The company does not list any other South Florida properties.
BH bought the office campus at 601 Potrero Grande Drive in Monterey Park in Los Angeles County for $15 million this month.
The South Florida retail market has been rebounding following the pandemic-induced slump, with Miami-Dade County’s first quarter vacancy rate hitting 3.7 percent, down from 4.5 percent during the same period last year, according to a Colliers report. Asking rents averaged $40.82 per square foot, up 11.4 percent from $36.65 in the first quarter of 2021.
In Miami Beach, Robert Rivani’s Black Lion Investment Group, based in Los Angeles, bought the restaurant building at 200 South Pointe Drive for $11.5 million in April.
This month, Capital Cove Investments bought the two-story retail condo underneath the garage at 4000 Collins Avenue for $18 million.