NR nabs $51M construction loan for Oakland Park project

Developer is building 136-unit mixed-income apartment building, new city hall

Rendering of the Sky project in Oakland Park with NR Investments’ Ron Gottesmann & Nir Shoshani
Rendering of the Sky project in Oakland Park with NR Investments’ Ron Gottesmann & Nir Shoshani (NR Investments, Zyscovich)

NR Investments scored a $51 million construction loan for a mixed-use project in Oakland Park with workforce housing and a new city hall. 

The development, called Sky, will include a six-story apartment building with 136 units and a roughly 30,000-square-foot, five-story city hall on 2 acres at 3701-3801 North Dixie Highway, according to a news release from the financing broker and records. NR Investments started construction earlier this month, shortly after buying the development site from the city for $2.6 million. 

The financing package breaks down to a $39 million senior construction loan from City National Bank, and $12 million from a private equity debt fund. The capital stack amounts to more than 80 percent of the project’s total cost, according to the financing broker. The project, which is in the Community Redevelopment Area, also scored tax increment financing.

Jeremy Pino and Livingston Hessam were part of the Walker & Dunlop team that arranged the financing.  

The Zyscovich-designed project, which will have an overpass above Northeast 38th Street connecting the apartment building to city hall, will include retail space, more than 300 parking spaces and live-work units. At least 20 percent of the units will be for households earning no more than 120 percent of the area median income, and the remainder will be for households earning no more than 140 percent of the AMI. Broward County’s AMI is $82,100.

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As NR works on that project, Oakland Park’s existing city hall also is poised for redevelopment. 

The city in 2021 issued a call to developers to replace the existing city hall at 3650 Northeast 12th Avenue, across North Dixie Highway and the railroad tracks from the Sky development site. 

Last summer, commissioners agreed to sell the property to a joint venture of Falcone Group and Kaufman Lynn Construction that plans a mixed-use project with 319 apartments. 

NR Investments, based in Miami, has been focused on redeveloping publicly owned property in recent years. Last year, the firm submitted an unsolicited proposal to the city of Miami to redevelop the 18-acre General Services Administration complex in Allapattah. NR envisions leasing the site for 99 years and building 2,500 apartments, 300 hotel rooms, 200,000 square feet of offices and 100,000 square feet of retail at the site at 1970 Northwest 13th Avenue and 1950 Northwest 12th Avenue. 

NR’s application triggers the city’s solicitation process, so Miami officials would have to allow other developers to file project plans and vie to redevelop the property. 

Led by founders Ron Gottesmann and Nir Shoshani, NR’s completed projects include the 37-story, 513-unit Canvas condominium and the 16-story, 81-unit Filling Station Lofts apartment building, both in Miami’s Arts & Entertainment District