Leon Medical Centers CEO sells waterfront Gables Estates lot 

Leon Medical Centers CEO Benjamin Leon III sold a waterfront property in Gables Estates to luxury homebuilder Humberto Ramirez. 

Leon, son of Leon Medical Centers founder Benjamin Leon Jr., sold the 1-acre lot at 9175 Arvida Drive to a company led by Ramirez for $10.4 million, property records show. Leon Jr. has bought and sold real estate in the gated waterfront Coral Gables community for years. 

Lucrecia Lindemann of Destaca Real Estate brokered the off-market deal, according to an email blast. The lot has more than 150 feet of waterfront and access to Biscayne Bay. 

Ramirez, owner of Humberto Ramirez Developers, said he plans to build a mansion with about 14,000 to 15,000 square feet of interior space. It could be completed in about three years. Ramirez said he hasn’t decided whether he will sell the home, but that it would be currently valued at about $40 million. 

HR Developers has four homes in its pipeline, including the planned waterfront house at 3172 North Bay Road, which will hit the market for about $16 million, and another planned for ​​1041 Venetian Drive. Both are in Miami Beach.

His company also has built custom homes in Miami Beach, including on Palm Island and in Normandy Shores; in Key Biscayne; Eastern Shores and other parts of Miami-Dade County. Ramirez said he is looking for opportunities to buy land in luxury markets, including additional sites in Gables Estates. 

Next-door neighbor P. Nelson Rodriguez sold the Gables Estates property to Leon III in 2020 for an undisclosed amount, records show. 

Leon III’s father made the bulk of his fortune when he sold Clínica Asociación Cubana to UnitedHeathCare for about half a billion dollars in 1994. Two years later, Leon Jr. founded Leon Medical Centers, which has eight locations across Miami-Dade. 

In October, Leon Jr. sold the waterfront home at 550 Arvida Parkway in Gables Estates to trial attorney John Ruiz for $22 million. Leon paid just $10.9 million for the house in 2019. 

In 2020, Leon Jr. sold the mansion at 620 Arvida Parkway in Gables Estates to Ruiz for $49 million, which, at the time, marked the second most expensive single-family home sale ever in Miami-Dade. The record is now the nearly $107 million sale last year of Adrienne Arsht’s estate in Miami to billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin. 

Ruiz, owner of Coral Gables-based MSP Recovery and MSP Recovery Law Firm, has continued to sell pricey residential properties despite the market slowdown. In January, he sold the eight-bedroom, 13,200-square-foot waterfront mansion at 530 Arvida Parkway in Gables Estates for $30 million. Still, the sale marked a 67 percent discount off the property’s original $45 million asking price.