Former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine sells Wynwood complex for $24M

Miami Beach’s former mayor Philip Levine has cashed in on a Wynwood complex known as the Whale & Star building. 

An entity managed by Levine sold three warehouses for $24 million. Combined, the buildings at 2215 Northwest First Place total 27,400, according to a press release. The deal breaks down to $623 dollars per square foot. 

The buyer is a Delaware LLC named Whale & Star Wynwood Owner.

Laura Valente with Global Luxury Realty and Alyssa Morgan with the Inside Network represented the buyer. Tony Arellano and Devlin Marinoff with DWTN Realty Advisors and Miami-based attorney Charles Ratner represented Levine.

The full-block property was listed for $29 million. In 2012, Levine’s entity paid $5.9 million for the three warehouses, and renovated the buildings into an art gallery complex. The site is also adjacent to a proposed Woonerf, a Dutch-inspired, pedestrian friendly street.

The existing complex can be repurposed into retail storefronts with glass walls. However, some of the site is primed for redevelopment, according to a listing. A developer could tear down the southern portion of the complex and replace it with a hotel with 265 rooms to 388 rooms or an apartment building with 132 units to 194 units. The zoning also allows for an eight-story office building, the offering states. 

Levine served as Miami Beach mayor from 2013 to 2017. A year later, he launched an unsuccessful bid to become Florida’s governor. He and his partner, Miami Beach-based developer Scott Robins, own a 0.9-acre site at 35-83 Northwest 27th Street in Wynwood where the duo are proposing a five-story building with 203 units and 15,000 square feet of ground-floor retail. 

Earlier this month, a separate entity managed by Robins and Levine sold a three-story retail building near Lincoln Road in Miami Beach. Azor Exan, a joint venture between Madrid-based Azora and Miami-based Exan Capital, paid $16 million for the property at 1000 17th Street.