Lurra Capital drops $43M for apartment complex near Coral Gables

Lurra Capital paid $42.5 million for a 100-unit apartment complex near Coral Gables, as the Swiss firm continues to dive into South Florida’s multifamily market.

Lurra, a Zurich-based private equity firm led by founder and CEO Tyron Birkmeir, acquired Blume Coral Gables at 1501 Southwest 37th Avenue in Miami, according to a press release. The deal breaks down to $425,000 per apartment.

A Cushman & Wakefield team led by Calum Weaver and Robert Given represented the seller, an affiliate of Greystone, a New York-based commercial real estate finance and investment company. In 2015, a Greystone affiliate bought the land for $8.8 million and completed the 14-story building four years later, records show.

Blume Coral Gables, previously called The Aura, offers a mix of studio lofts, one- and two-bedroom apartments and has a 6,200-square-foot ground-floor retail space. Monthly asking rents range between $2,704 and $3,890, according to Apartments.com.

Last year, Lurra acquired two other multifamily properties in Miami. The firm paid $6.4 million for a 24-unit complex in Miami’s Shenandoah neighborhood, and $3.8 million for a 15-unit building in Little Havana, records show.

Founded in 2017, Lurra oversees $6 billion in assets, the release states. The firm is seeking to grow its presence and expand its real estate portfolio in South Florida, Birkmeir said in a statement.

“The Miami multifamily market maintains solid fundamentals with population growth, a strong job market and record low unemployment,”  Birkmeir said. “We are actively looking at new opportunities.”

Empira Group is another Swiss firm planting a flag in South Florida. In August, the Zug, Switzerland-based company paid $9 million for a 0.5-acre development site in Miami’s The Roads neighborhood. Empira plans to build CoralGrove Brickell, an eight-story apartment building with 85 units and 900 square feet of ground-floor retail space.