Aimco spinoff Air pays $251M for South Beach Southgate Towers

Air Communities beefed up its portfolio with the $250.5 million purchase of Southgate Towers in Miami Beach.

Air, or Apartment Income Real Estate Investment Trust, paid $223.5 million for the pair of 14-story multifamily buildings at 910 West Avenue, and $26.9 million for the garage with ground-floor retail at 959 West Avenue, according to records. The Gumenick family’s Gumenick Properties sold both properties.

Publicly traded Air announced it had the property under contract in its third quarter earnings release last year. At the time, it reported a purchase price of $298 million. Air didn’t immediately return a request for comment regarding the change in price.

The deal for 495-unit Southgate breaks down to nearly $452,000 per apartment.

This is the first time Southgate Towers has traded since the Gumenick family completed the buildings sometime in the late 1950s or the early 1960s. At the time, the project marked the first high-rise apartment complex in Miami Beach. The late Nathan Gumenick started the eponymously named firm in Richmond, Va., and it is now based in Richmond and Miami Beach, with grandson Randy Gumenick as chairman.

The pair of L-shaped buildings sit on 4 acres overlooking Biscayne Bay and Miami.
Southgate offers studios, as well as one- to three-bedroom apartments, with monthly rents ranging from $2,500 to $7,250, according to Apartments.com.

The five-story garage, which is across the street from Southgate, was completed in 2002 on 1.3 acres, property records show. Retail tenants include Caffe Umbria, Pure Pharmacy, Giotto Maestro Della Pizza and Oliver’s Bistro.

Air, based in Denver and led by Terry Considine, spun off in 2020 from Aimco as an apartment communities REIT.

Air placed at least two other wagers on South Florida’s multifamily market last year. It bought The District at Flagler Village building at 555 Northeast Eighth Street in Fort Lauderdale’s Flagler Village for $173 million. Air also purchased the 28-story, 296-unit Watermarc at Biscayne Bay on the northeast corner of North Bayshore Drive and Northeast 21st Street for $211 million. 

The tri-county region’s rental market has boomed over the past two and a half years, thanks to a population influx that has pushed up rents to new heights. A recent report from RentCafe deemed Miami-Dade County as the “most competitive” apartment market in the U.S. An average of 32 renters vied for one available unit, far above the national average of 14 renters competing for an apartment.

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